


Rubber Side Down

by DragonTail



Series: Transformers: Distant Thunder [4]
Category: Transformers (Unicron Trilogy), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Cybertron
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonTail/pseuds/DragonTail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The once-peaceful world of Speedia has been ravaged by a hyper-accelerated civil war. Intent on saving the day, Rodimus and Blur lead a team back to the site of their racing triumph. Their goal: end the conflict and restore the normal flow of time before any more lives are lost. But things have changed on Speedia... even more than our heroes could imagine... and this time, victory will require more than just speed. It will require sacrifice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Blur?”

His voice reverberated strangely through the viscous yellow liquid.

“Override? Swerve?”

Mere talking was an effort, physical motion more so. Not just because of the gelatinous amber fluid surrounding him, but because of the hardy technorganic seaweed looped around his arms, legs and chassis.

“Anybody?”

Rodimus fought down the panic, the feeling of isolation. This wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Okay, so the ship had broken up in the atmosphere and shattered into a thousand ruby chunks. His comrades, like himself, had been flung from the ruined, rapidly fallen husk and deposited Primus-knew-where across a strange world. None of this was a reason to be fearful. Not at all. Especially not for an Autobot.

Those mechanical piranhas rapidly swimming toward him, however, were a fantastic reason to freak right out.

He forced himself to calm down. Utter terror ill befit a once-and-future bearer of the Creation Matrix. Being digested by extra-terrestrial fish would look even worse on his resume. Tow-Line had already ragged on him enough for one vorn.

As the piranhas drew closer, Rodimus shunted a small supply of Energon into the windshields beneath his forearms. The gold-tinted sheets – harder than diamond – began to hum slightly as they morphed into dangerous vibro-blades. Suddenly missing his Prime-mode’s Energon dagger, Rodimus slashed at the unhelpful seaweed and filleted two or three piranhas that drew too close. He lashed out at two more, cleaving one in half, before the rest of the school got the message and took off.

As he powered down the blades and stepped from the tangled mess, he thought he heard a faint voice calling his name, screaming for help. The young Autobot transformed into a red-and-orange sports car and made for the source of the sound. He strained his audio scanners, trying to pick up a trace of that pain-wracked voice.

There – about half a kilometre away. Was it Swerve? Maybe Blur? Had the piranhas turned to them instead?

He concentrated and manifested his Force Chip – a red disc that boosted his abilities tenfold – then willed it to slam into a port in his centre rear panelling. The change was instant. Small Energon wings leaped from his bodywork and snapped into place, cleaving the “water” and increasing his speed. Retro thrusters fired, dissolving the treacle-like fluid around him and he hurtled forward.

It wasn’t the piranhas. It was worse.

To all intents and purposes it was a squid – albeit a mechanical copy of the Earth creature – boasting segmented limbs and small, cruel eyes. He could see Override, Blur and Swerve, clutched in its tentacles. As he looked closer, he blanched – each of his comrades in a different state of disrepair or dismemberment.

Choking down a furious growl, Rodimus lifted his right arm, drew careful bead on the squid and fired. Triplet bolts of electricity arced through the fluid and crashed onto the beast, making it squeal with pain and surprise. The current carried across limbs, jumping the gap between each writhing appendage. In moments, the squid was ensnared in something far worse than seaweed and only to eager to drop the pieces of Rodimus’ friends. Now, its rage was directed solely toward him.

Just the way Rodimus wanted it.

The squid wrapped an arm around the Autobot and he let himself be pulled in, closer to the beast’s horrible maw. Halfway there, Rodimus reactivated the left-hand vibro-blade and hacked into the thick metal, forcing the beast to release him. A second arm caught him again, dragging him further away from safety but right to the spot he needed to be. Finally close enough, Rodimus fired a searing blast from the vents on his right forearm and detonated the squid’s eye, causing it to howl in agony. It dropped him again, permanently this time, and retreated in a cloud of black ink. Rodimus shielded his eyes and, when the pungent substance finally dispersed, he saw…

… the ruby walls of Override’s star ship.

Grunting, Rodimus uncrossed his stocky legs and lay flat on the floor. He’d been meditating in the empty chamber too long, this time… his attempts to contact and commune with the distant Creation Matrix had turned into some kind of weird combat training exercise. Maybe he’d gone too deep into the artifact, accessed a memory belonging to a now-deceased Transformer, and merged it with his own concerns. Or had a glimpse of the future. Maybe.

He stared at the ceiling. Like everything in the ship… everything on Speedia… it was red. It made for a nice change from the crystalline blue of anything to do with the Creation Matrix, and the purple/white of the Vector Sigma chamber, and especially the obsidian depths of Unicron’s singularity. “Nice ship for a short trip,” he chuckled to himself, “but I wouldn’t want to own one. Rather be back in the _Axalon_.”

_Ahh, who are you kidding?_ asked a voice inside his head. And it was right – he was joking to cover up his sense of failure. Learning, vorns early, his destiny… that he was to be the next Prime, successor to Optimus and leader of the Transformer race… was humbling and spirit-crushing. In his brief stint as Autobot leader he’d almost gotten his team killed, saving them only through personal action. And while that was the sort of thing a “chosen one” could do, it didn’t make for great leadership skills. He needed a lot more wisdom than he currently possessed if he was going to one day take the reigns.

That meant understanding the Matrix, even though it wasn’t in his chest cavity anymore. He was still linked to it, he’d found, irrespective of distance. Idly, he wondered if Ultra Magnus felt the same tether, given he was one half of the binary Spark, the Omega Prime. In any event, Rodimus felt the only way to hone his new abilities – and master his new, sleeker body form – was to follow the ancient path of the Matrix Templars.

By reactivating the Underbase, the Autobots had learned a lot more about the venerable order. Forerunners to the famed Tyrestian Vanguard, the Templars believed all Transformers had a dedicated hard-link to the Matrix and could call on its powers at any time. Such teachings were shunned by the more religious High Council – it favoured the election of a sole Prime to lead the race. Still, the Templars had more insight than their rivals… their leader was Alpha Trion, now recognised as the first Prime of the Cybertronian race.

Rodimus hoped that, by studying the Templar ways, he could better himself for the task ahead. His meditations, however, had given him little more than processor fragmentation, stiff hydraulics and weird visions of metal-eating fish. _Maybe_ , he mused, _it’s time I stopped thinking about “the power within” and stepped outside._

Well, perhaps not _stepped_. Like anything to do with the racing-obsessed planet of Speedia, the interior of the bullet-shaped ship was a network of roads, loops and chicanes. You didn’t walk to the bridge, you drove there. Rodimus transformed into his new vehicle mode – he loved it so much more than his former, boxy truck styling – and headed out of the chamber.

He drove up and around a spiraling freeway, marveling at the artificial gravity that kept him from soaring up and away. The roads connected all of the chambers – each built into the sides of the bullet – and intersected and twisted around each other through its hollow centre. The bridge was at the tip of the craft though, in truth, it did very little. Override, the former Queen of Speedia, had told them it was a projectile by nature as well as shape – it had to be fired at its destination and could do precious little to deviate from its course. Following the defeat of Unicron, Downshift had managed to cobble together a launcher capable of sending them all back to the racing world, with the promise someone would be by to “pick them up” when their mission had been completed.

_Our mission_ , Rodimus thought, and shuddered. _In saving our own world, and the entire universe, from a massive black hole, we damned Speedia_.

The distant red planet was one of three settled by the original Transformers following the betrayal of Nemesis Prime. It had become home to the red Planet Key, a device that controlled gravity, inertia and had a limited effect on time itself. Combined with the unique atmosphere of Speedia, the artifact jump-started an evolutionary process that left all Transformers with sleek race-styled designs and an obsession with velocity.

Speedia’s culture was based around car racing, its factions of Autobots and Decepticons living in relative peace by expressing their aggression on the track. Even the planet’s leader was selected by racing – a true “first past the post” system. Until the arrival of the Cybertronian Autobots, that leader had been Override. Now, thanks to the victory that secured the Key for Optimus Prime’s team, the top ‘bot on Speedia was Rodimus’ best friend, Blur.

He shuddered again, wishing the story ended there. It didn’t – in fact, it got worse.

While on Speedia, the Planet Key had regulated the flow of time and gravity to enhance speedy Transformers. Once it had been removed, so too had its balancing effect – plunging the entire world into a crazed fast-forward. Falling victim to the radiation that had soaked into the soil and structures for millennia, time itself accelerated and swept the native population along. With their duly "elected" leader off-world, old resentments flared and conflict had begun. Years worth of warfare had been waged in the space of days, making total planetary annihilation a very real possibility within a quarter of a vorn.

At least, that’s what they’d been told.

Rodimus pulled into the bridge and braked hard. No one turned to look… they were all busy with their own ruminations. Blur, usually a streak of perpetual nervous motion, was slumped over a table and tapping a finger on the red Planet Key. It was a large, slightly translucent red disk. One half of it was edged with golden designs – similar to a car's dashboard – while the other tapered into a key-like shape. In the centre of the disk was a design, also silver, that looked like the needle on a speedometer, but actually represented lightning over Cybertron. Blur was tapping on the artifact so fast that the motion was soundless – the vibrations were at a pitch above the register of Rodimus’ audio sensors.

Swerve, Blur’s twin, sat a short distance away at a computer terminal. No doubt the keen metallurgist was boning up on the rocks and dirt of Speedia, getting in research time while he could. Given his success with Key radiation on Animatros, the bestial world, Swerve hoped to permanently reverse the damage done to Speedia’s environment… just in case they needed to “borrow” the Key ever again.

A fast but not especially skilful driver, Swerve would do well on Speedia… with a little help from a friend. Incinerator was propped against the base of the console, optics shut down for his rest cycle. The Mini-con was the worst kind of insufferable braggart – the kind who backed up his boasts with panache and true ability. Alone, Incinerator was one of the fastest land-based Transformers. Combined with Swerve, they became Blur’s near-equal. Their Powerlinx mode also gave them flight capabilities – and on this mission, any tactical advantage was welcome.

Then there was Override. She stood at the very tip of the bridge, gazing out the main view screen with her hands clasped behind her back. Rodimus still wasn’t quite sure if he could trust the pink-and-white femme, who was actually one of the original 13 Transformers created by Primus. She and Blur had some kind of strange relationship going, but that wasn’t enough to give her a free pass. After all, she’d outright threatened them the last time they’d been on Speedia, then kicked all of their skid plates back on Cybertron.

Before they’d used the Key to close the black hole, Override had attacked them in the city of Iacon. She’d been ferocious, almost crazed, and had decimated half the Autobot ranks in her unending push for the Key.

_“You have no idea of the mess you left on my world,”_ she’d spat at Rodimus. _“There was no need for war, for bitterness or indignation, because there was always another race and another chance to come out on top. No Key meant no way for a lesser ‘bot to step up and take control. Our democracy was missing its cornerstone, and so crumbled. Dirt Boss rallied the Decepticons and they took up arms, attacking the Pits and laying siege to Accel City. We Autobots had no choice but to fight back, to create weapons of our own. Now half the planet lies in ruins!”_

She’d turned to their side and helped destroy Unicron, of course, but his doubts still lingered. Privately, Red Alert and Downshift had also expressed disbelief at her story. They doubted any force, Planet Keys included, could warp the fabric of time itself – especially in such a localised way. Grimlock had disagreed, pointing to the effects of radiation on Animatros… ambient energy that had almost killed his entire team. Ever the pragmatist, Optimus Prime had insisted a team return with Override to assess the situation and restore order and, ever the adventurous hot-head, Rodimus had volunteered to lead the mission.

Selfishly, it was perfect timing for Rodimus. It gave him time to explore the Templar ways, a place to push the limits of his new, reformatted body… and it gave him distance from Arcee. He and the femme warrior had long shared an understanding, but it had been strained by the war and the presence of Thundercracker. The ex-Decepticon – whom Rodimus did not trust at _all_ – had made his feelings about Arcee clear, and it seemed she shared them. That left Rodimus alone, wondering if he should take a stand to win back her affections… or if he should even try, given his future destiny.

Did a leader-born have the right to pursue a relationship when he’d have to give so much of himself to his troops? More concerning, should a Transformer even be thinking this way, or was Rodimus slipping too far into the ways of their human friends?

“Almost there,” Override said suddenly. “Almost home… what’s left of it.”

Blur was by her side in less than a second, fidgeting nervously with the Key. Swerve gently tapped Incinerator on the head and the Mini-con cycled awake with a gruff bark. “Who’m I racing?” he demanded, a belligerent smile spreading over his face plate. Rodimus ignored him and walked to the view screen, more than ready for some answers.

The last time he’d seen Speedia from orbit, it had looked like a paradise. Red clouds had wreathed the planet, giving it a ruby glow. The soil itself had been ochre-red and criss-crossed with mile upon mile of impossible roads. Freeways that twisted and turned impossibly had jutted out and around land formations, cutting through mountains and bridging valleys. Overpasses had joined underpasses that linked tunnels that connected to suspension bridges. Any breaks in the road network seemed to be jumps, offering a driver a thousand potential places to land... and keep driving.

Now… there was nowhere left to drive.

The breaks in the road weren’t jumps anymore – they were battle damage. Massive chunks of asphalt had been detonated, incinerated or simply blown out of the freeways and overpasses. Scattered, uniform holes in straight-ways had been created by fields of land mines, while support struts had been slashed and burned. The land had turned a dusty brown, the skies a thick grey with only wispy hints of their former crimson hue. The decimated planet seemed deserted.

“Is everyone dead already?” Incinerator snorted crassly.

“Notifyouputyourmouthinneutralandyouropticsondoublespeed,” Blur snapped back. “Lookalittlecloser, youidiot.”

Rodimus slipped his visor down, seeing through Matrix-enhanced optics. Sure enough, the roads were choked with cars. They were ramming into each other, gouging at tyres with spiked weapons and trying to force their foes off the road. Here and there were dotted Transformers in their robot modes, snapping off shots from small pistols or firing massive barrages from large, double-barrelled cannons. Perplexed, Rodimus retracted the visor… once again, the roads were seemingly empty.

“Invisibility?” he asked. “Stealth technology?”

“Super-speed,” Swerve said grimly. “They’re moving so fast they’re invisible to the naked optic. I can’t even see them properly – I can detect energy signatures due to the massive amounts of heat they’re generating, but nothing more.”

“Sounds like my kinda place,” Incinerator guffawed.

“Ireallyreallyreallyreally _really_ wishyouweren’tneededforthismission,” Blur snarled. “Youjusthavenoideaoftheseriousnessofallofthis, do you?”

Rodimus reached out a hand to his friend’s shoulder. He knew Blur blamed himself for the chaos on Speedia. He’d been rightfully elected their leader, their king, and had instantly taken off with their most prized possession. The gentle, nearly pacifistic Transformer was carrying the sins of a race within his own Spark. Rodimus knew the feeling… the terror of impending responsibility. Maybe by helping Blur calm “his” world, Rodimus could start to find a way to tackle his own destiny.

“I don't know how long it will take for the Key to reassert the proper flow of time,” Override said regally. Rodimus noticed she didn’t stop to gloat about being right. “So we’re going to have to improvise. If Blur uses the Planet Key, I’ll use the Force Chip you Autobots brought here in the first place. Rodimus can manifest his own, so the three of us should at least be as fast those affected by the time-slip. Swerve and Incinerator, linked up, will be slower but should at least be able to do something to help.”

“Terrific,” Swerve moaned. “Why is it every time I set foot on an alien world, I’m at an instant disadvantage?”

“Maybe the universe hates you,” Incinerator quipped.

Override turned to Rodimus. “Do you approve of that plan… commander?”

He winced at her tone. Override had made no secret, back at the Decagon, of her dissatisfaction with the command structure. In her opinion Blur should be in charge, whether he wanted to or not, because he was the king of Speedia. Optimus had assured her the proper protocols would be followed when necessary but, in his opinion, Rodimus was the logical choice for team leader. The snipes and sarcasm began immediately.

Rodimus sighed and nodded. “Let’s do it,” he said, “And let’s do it the old fashioned way.”

He and Blur grabbed their weapons and made for the side hatch. Swerve and Incinerator transformed, the Mini-con slotting into a hatch just above his rear exhaust. The Autobot’s sides flipped down, becoming wings. Blur changed shape and summoned the Planet Key from subspace – the first time he’d done so – and yelped slightly as he, too, sprouted wings. “Thatwasunexpected,” he said quietly. “Usefulthough.”

The hatch opened and the twins accelerated into the atmosphere, firing afterburners and soaring down to the surface. Staying in robot mode, Rodimus leaped out after them. Red energy swirled around his shoulders as his Force Chip coalesced, then slammed into a vent on his back. Clear Energon wings sprouted from his rear spoiler and activated, allowing him to glide down through the grubby clouds… toward whatever awaited them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With special thanks to [Razorsaw](http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showuser=280) for his generous loaning of an idea.

He hit the ground running. As it had once before, Rodimus’ sensor net took its first scan of Speedia’s atmosphere. It was a warm, highly ionised mix of nitrogen and oxygen, perfect for cooling one’s engine. It was also thick with carbon monoxide… once the product of endless racing, now the noxious stench of constant warfare.

Even so, it was still as if the air itself were charged with a fantastic energy, crackling through the sky and into every engine intake, every valve, every cylinder. Just this short “sniff” of the world below left Rodimus feeling antsy, like he wanted to transform and drive as hard and as far and as long as he could, never stopping for any reason.

He wanted to go, but he was too slow.

A green, yellow and black two-wheeler slammed into his lower legs. Rodimus yelped as he fell backward, landing painfully on the fractured tarmac. Twisting just in time, he avoided two more insect-coloured motorbikes. The trio, identical to his optics, braked hard and started to circle around him. Their laughter merged into a chilling stereo effect that whipped and whirled around his audio sensors.

“Autobot, Autobot, Autobot,” they sang. The voice, the scrappy accent, struck a chord in Rodimus’ memory, but he couldn’t determine why. “Youse all think you’re _so_ tough, but yer just street grease from my perspective.”

Impossibly, they pivoted on their back wheels and, facing him, charged. Rodimus leaped, barely managing to clear their mashing fenders. He activated his arm blades and slashed as he fell, cutting through one bike’s windshield and another’s front tyre. They hissed and howled while the uninjured Decepticon transformed. Rodimus glared at his opponent… then felt his oil chill.

“Ransack?”

It couldn’t be, but it was. He was facing off with Ransack – the little twerp who’d provided the brains while Crumplezone had supplied the brawn. But Ransack had outwitted himself and been slagged into non-existence by his dumb partner. _How in the name of Alpha Trion is he alive?_ the young cavalier wondered. _And how the heck are there three of him?_

The other bikes transformed and, sure enough, unfolded into duplicate Ransacks. Each one loosed a twin-barrelled blaster from his rear section and took careful aim. “Dunno how you know my name,” they said in unison, “coz I got no idea who you are, punk. Wanna tell me so I can engrave it onya tombstone?”

More engines sounded, cutting off the trio’s words. Behind them was a phalanx of white motorcycles – ivory two-wheelers streaked with black. They sprouted blue and red lights from their rear sections as sirens blared. The Ransack triplets grimaced and fired on the newcomers. “Dammit, Gasket!” they cried.

The black-and-white bikes zipped through the hail of laser fire and transformed, firing their own weapons. Rodimus hit the deck and covered his head. It was only a second later, when he peered through his fingers, that he noticed the five police bikes… were Ransacks as well!

“What the Unicron is going on around here?” he breathed.

\-----

“Are we there yet?” Incinerator grumbled.

Swerve ignored him. There was too much data to process and no time to waste on recalcitrant Mini-cons bolted into one’s rear spoiler… even if Rodimus had warned the air on the planet was likely to cause this reaction.

“I _said_ , are we _there_ yet?”

_Nothing wrong with a slow descent, you little brat_ , Swerve groused silently. The longer they took to reach the surface, the better his analysis would be. And he knew – he just _knew_ – the solution to Speedia’s problems would be found in her minerals.

Once, you’d have been hard pressed to find an Autobot with less self-confidence than Swerve. That was before Animatros, and before the battle of Iacon. On both occasions, he had sold himself short and given into self-pity, missing the obvious metallurgic conclusions that went on, in the long term, to save lives. Truthfully, he was no more secure in his abilities, thanks to those victories… he just didn’t want to waste time again.

Swerve had decided, on the way to Speedia, that Override was right… that her world had been thrown into fast-forward by the removal of the red Planet Key. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time one of the ancient devices had re-sculpted a world. He and the Dinobots had almost died on Animatros, a place where ever substance was awash with dangerous, unrefined Energon.

The green Planet Key had done that, had impregnated everything from rocks to blades of grass with potent radiation. That was its purpose, after all – it had been designed to fire the Plasma Energy Chamber, the forge in which the first Cybertronians had been constructed. Because of the Key, lifeless metal constructs had been imbued with energy, turning their armour from dull gunmetal grey to vivid colours. On Animatros, the Key had charged up all of its surroundings, rather than the local robots.

The red Key could warp the laws of physics, remove inertia and manipulate time. It had spent millennia on Speedia and, likely, had charged the rocks and soil with its energies just as had its green sibling. But such primal forces required fine control, and Swerve believed removing the Key would have thrown the balance off, accelerating time but in a localised manner – affecting only those places… and beings… impregnated with its crimson radiation.

Every one of the Planet Keys _had_ that kind of power, no matter what Red Alert and Downshift thought. Swerve had proven them wrong before – about the inner workings of Fortress Maximus – and would do so again. The only problem was the readings flooding through his specially-designed, sensor-filled hands. They didn’t jibe with his theories, and didn’t even resemble the waveforms found on Animatros.

“Puzzling,” he said aloud. “Very, very puzzling.”

“Aw frell, Swerve, there ain’t nothing to it,” Incinerator guffawed. “If you were having troubles, you should have just told me so I could take care’a business!”

“What? Incinerator, no…”

It was too late. The Mini-Con flooded their combined form with power, thrusting them down at an astonishing rate. Swerve tried to fight down the urge to shriek and steered, managing little more than a sickening array of loops and twists as they drew closer to the hail of energy fire below. Even with his perceptions sped up by the Powerlink, Swerve could _barely_ see the hyper-fast combatants of Speedia.

“ _Will you slow it the frell down, you demented little freak?!!?_ ” he wailed, wrenching them to the left – out of a large truck’s line of fire – and down to the ground.

“Your command is my wish,” Incinerator replied and, with a hiss and a crackle of static, uncoupled the Powerlink and dropped to the tarmac.

Suddenly, the battlefield around Swerve… every single robot, every laser blast and every missile… vanished.

\-----

The Ransacks kept firing. Rodimus stayed on his belly and crawled out of the way. When he reached the side of the ruined freeway, he climbed up over it and dropped to the planet’s surface. _Thank Primus we’re at ground level_ , he thought, coughing up a mouthful of ruddy brown dust.

It was worse than he’d feared. The Autobots – for that’s what the “Gasket” police types were – fought with as much reckless abandon as the Decepticons. Small wonder the planet was ruined. It wasn’t just the sped-up nature of the war, it was the way it was being fought. Wryly, he realised that made sense. Since colonisation, Speedia had been ruled by Override, who was one of the original 13 Transformers. The only war she’d ever known was the fight against Unicron, which was one of your more “no holds barred” kind of conflicts. Her people, now unleashed and unchecked, would fight with the same level of savagery. _Kicker would call this a “Biblical” war,_ Rodimus told himself.

Keeping his visor down, making the most of his Matrix-enhanced optics, he scanned the battlefield. Blur was _everywhere_ , giving mercy to neither friend nor foe. He ran through the massed ranks and tore weapons from their chassis. Those who tried to fight hand-to-hand were unceremoniously knocked offline by a stiff punch to the jaw – Autobot and Decepticon alike. Peering close, Rodimus barely recognised his best friend – his demeanour was uncharacteristically grim, his mouth clamped shut in raw determination. Despite the weird changes the planet had gone through – or perhaps _because_ of them – Blur was at least twice as fast as anyone on Speedia… as long as he concentrated. It was a truly frightening thought. _Fastest Transformer in all creation, indeed_.

He had no idea where Override was. She’d stayed on the ship when they’d all jumped off, and it was long gone from the skies above. Hopefully she was taking the red Planet Key to a place where it could make a difference, where it could arrest the freakish development of the war. Still, he had his doubts.

And Swerve…

“Matrix, no,” Rodimus hissed as he caught sight of the gentle metallurgist.

To his optics, Swerve was frozen in place. Every few seconds he’d move, just slightly, rolling a little further on his wheels. Rodimus knew Swerve was, really, moving at proper speed – but that was slow compared with everyone else on Speedia. _Dead_ slow, given the number of small Speedia natives that were darting past him, ripping and tearing his metalwork and trying their best to disassemble him. Already, huge sections of his crimson chassis had been stripped bare, wiring and circuitry hanging loose and sparking.

Rodimus charged, firing all six of his forearm-mounted electro-blasters. The vultures scattered in all directions, whooping and shrieking as the arcing blasts gouged their armour. Instantly, Rodimus sized up the problem. Swerve’s Powerlinx port was empty – Incinerator, block head that he was, had obviously taken off to get into the thick of the fighting. Without even that much of a speed kick, his friend was a stop-motion puppet.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” he said. “No one’s taking you to the chop shop today.”

He raised his arms, ready to fire another volley, when a humming blue shape materialised in front of him. It stopped vibrating and coalesced into Blur, cradling armfuls of weaponry. The speedster glared at the dumbfounded robots around him, making sure he’d caught their attention. Then he vibrated again – just his arms, this time – and super-heated the guns until they melted in his grasp.

“Gohomewar’sovergetlostallofyou,” he roared, “orthenextthingsImeltwillbeyourstupidheads!”

Whatever else was going on, the Speedia natives still recognised their democratically-elected leader. The Ransacks and other Decepticons turned tail and ran – drove – away as fast as they could. Autobots and Gaskets sheepishly trudged away, pausing to collect the fallen.

Blur seemed to want to disarm everyone on Speedia. It was a good plan and would likely work, if the inhabitants were a little less crazed. But every snatched weapon would be replaced with another, and every offline combatant would be stepped on by a new aggressor. This time, Rodimus realised, victory wasn’t going to be a matter of speed.

Two robots stayed behind, eyeing the Cybertronian Autobots with curious glances. One was a stranger to Rodimus – though short, he was very bulky across the neck and shoulders with a rake-thin lower chassis. His face was grizzled and aged, flecked with rust spots and small metallic imperfections. The other bot – much younger, his armour still vivid blue, orange and silver despite the war – was a welcome sight.

“Clocker!” Rodimus cried, lowering his weapons and smiling at his former ally.

Override’s chief advisor cocked his head to one side, listening, and then grinned broadly. “Rodimus! By the turn barriers of Nitrous Lane, you’ve changed! You look _nothing_ like you did vorns ago! Oh, it’s great to have you back!”

Rodimus opened his mouth to speak. Vorns? Even with the effects of the Key, surely only months had passed – not 80 Earth years! He stuttered and spluttered, tripping over his words. It seemed like his pistons weren’t pumping properly… like his sparkplugs had gone dull.

He could almost feel his systems wrench as his optics failed, and he slumped to the ground.

\-----

He came back online in an empty med bay, somewhere in the Pits in Accel City. They were a lot messier than he’d last seen them… whenever that had been, whatever time meant now… and corpses were piled high on all sides. Rodimus shook his head to clear it, giving his optics time to degauss and his processor time to reboot.

After that, the first order of business was also the simplest – Swerve was in the next bay over, smiling weakly. Incinerator was at his feet, looking suitably disciplined. The metallurgist’s treasured hands were intact, but the arms to which they attached were mere skeletons. His legs, too, were lacking in everything from external plating to joints and ratchets. “I’m alive,” he quipped, as if reading Rodimus’ mind, “but I doubt I’ll be running around with you and my brother anytime soon.”

“Any idea why I blacked out?” Rodimus asked, rubbing his head.

“Is that what happened? No one had told me.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then.”

A sonic boom thundered through the room, and both Autobots clapped their hands over their audio sensors. “What the frell?” Rodimus demanded.

“It’s been happening for the last hour, Terran-time,” Swerve shouted over the last of the echoes. “Blur’s arguing with Clocker and that other robot – I think he said his name was Brakedown – and Override. They’re talking so fast they keep breaking the sound barrier.”

Arguing? Rodimus wanted to be in on that… but first, he had questions that needed answers. Gingerly, he eased his way out of the med bay and walked across to the stacked corpses… only to have something force its way in between them.

He couldn’t see the obstruction, which meant it was some mech moving at super-speed. He lowered his visor and was not at all surprised to see Override, a sour look warping her golden face plate. “So I guess,” Rodimus said, “you sped back up again?”

Override looked at him strangely.

Rodimus repeated the question – the fembot’s response was the same. The expression was part curious, part pitying, and Rodimus didn’t like it one bit. He spoke even slower, the way he’d seen Kicker talk down to really thick humans, but all that did was cause Override to screw her face up further.

“Who are you talking to?” Swerve asked.

“Override,” Rodimus grumped. “She’s right in front of me – I can see her through my visor – but the silly wrench isn’t answering me!”

“Maybe because, to her, you’re _taaaaaaaaalking liiiiiiike thiiiiiiiiiis_ ,” Swerve replied. “You’re on slow-motion, compared with her. Remember?”

The young cavalier sighed and slapped himself on the forehead. “Of all the dumb things,” he muttered, summoning his Force Chip from subspace. A moment later his chassis crackled with red energy and his perceptions sped up – he could see Override even without his visor. “I was asking,” he said stiffly, “whether you’re back on fast-forward like everyone else? And if you went anywhere important while we were fighting.”

“As soon as you opened the doors of the ship, I sped up again, yes,” Override sniffed. “And I went to test a theory. I’d _thought_ that placing the Key nearest the soil of Speedia would start to rectify the situation. Turns out I needed to head in the opposite direction.”

She nodded her head toward the other side of the room. Rodimus could now see and hear Blur, Clocker and the one called Brakedown, their faces tense. Clocker, at least, seemed glad to see Rodimus but the older mech looked him over warily. “This,” he said, his voice all dust and gravel, “is the next Matrix-bearer, eh?” He spat hydraulic fluid on the ground. “A turbo-grabbing young punk. Sheesh.”

“I do all right, old timer,” Rodimus snapped.

“It’s true, Brakedown,” Clocker offered. “I saw Rodimus in the Speedia Ultimate, back when he was still this ugly box of a vehicle – he’s the one who took the jump at Seti Alpha V, _twice_ , and took out Dirt Boss.”

Rodimus shrugged with false modesty. “Hey, when it comes to the ol’ ‘turn and burn’ there’s Primus, and there’s me.”

Brakedown laughed – the sound of ten engines spluttering and failing. He was a small mech, with bulky shoulders and thin legs. Most of his armour was two-tone blue with gold highlights, while his helmet was a steely grey. “I knew Primus. I worked for Primus and, mech, you are no Primus.”

Override spoke again. “You already know of the 13, of those of us given the Keys and the others who were sworn to serve,” she intoned. “Brakedown was one of us, also… we called him Beta, in those days. He was the first among his clone brethren, and came to this world with me after the exile.”

“Ah,” Rodimus said, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

The old mech merely spat again.

“Rodimustheysaywe’vebeenawayfortwovorns,” Blur interrupted. “Twowholevorns! Idon’tevenunderstandhowthatcanbepossible! It’stoomuchit’stoolong, nowonderthingsaresobadaroundhere!”

Static flared inside the cavalier’s head. “What are they saying” Swerve asked over the internal communicator. “And is this getting through?” Rodimus confirmed the connection and then relayed the information – that more than 160 Earth years had passed, according to the Speedia natives, since the Autobots had left with the red Key. “Then the environmental affects are even worse than I’d first suspected,” came the reply. “I need to get repaired and back out there, to figure out what I can do.”

Rodimus passed this on to the others and was shouted down.

“That’swhatI’vebeentryingtotellthemforthelasthourbutthey’rebeingstubborn,” Blur sneered, holding the Planet Key in one hand. “They’reconvincedtheKeyneedstobeintheair, notthesoil, and that’llfixit.”

“Which means getting this to the _highest_ point on Speedia, not the lowest,” Override explained. “Which means Seti Alpha V.”

Despite himself, Rodimus shuddered. The jump at Seti Alpha V was a nightmare. He’d done it twice, as Clocker had said, and neither time willingly. The first time he’d survived by pure fluke, having been forced into taking the sky-high off-ramp by the Decepticon bruiser called Dirt Boss. The second, he’d repaid the favour and sent Dirt Boss tumbling to his death… or so he’d assumed. According to Override, the smooth-talking outlaw was the agitator behind the war on Speedia.

“Well?” the former speed queen demanded.

Rodimus grimaced. “As long as I don’t have to jump the gap,” he gulped, “I’m in.”

\-----

Brakedown and Clocker cleared a path for them. Rodimus watched with some sadness as they used their Force Chips to blow the Decepticons away. Clocker grew cannons from his rear spoiler while Brakedown sprouted a wicked-looking Energon spear from his front grille. Combined with Override’s twin decelerator lasers, there was little Rodimus or Blur had to do.

“I remember when this place was all about the racing,” Rodimus sighed.

“Ancient history, lad,” Brakedown snapped back. “Better get with the program.”

Ahead of them, about 400 metres away, the road split into two. The divide was marked by an eight-foot high, pointed barrier – to the right was the final straightway of the Speedia Ultimate, the annual race that decided leadership of the planet. To the left was that insane jump.

Something inside Rodimus egged him on, wanted him to gun his engine and go for it. He knew it was the influence of the red Planet Key and pushed it aside. Sure, he could now fly short distances and would make light work of the massive gap – but he was a little more sober, a little less adventurous, than he’d been a few megacycles ago. He had the irrational thought that, despite his new lighter, faster body, the weight of impending leadership would drag him down and he’d fall, like Dirt Boss had.

The locals pulled up hard, 100 metres from the edge. Blur stopped on a dime – like always – a little farther back, and Rodimus braked next to him. The duo transformed, Blur still clutching the Planet Key close, and walked toward the others.

“Something wrong?” Rodimus whispered.

“Don’tknowwhybutOverride’sbeingreallyodd,” Blur replied. “She’sbackonthatwholejag – justwantingthePlanetKey, likeyesterday, noquestionsnodiscussions. Notlikeher.”

“Actually, I think it’s a _lot_ like her, buddy. Your femme is something of a single-minded sort. Maybe it’s an older woman thing?”

Blur frowned. “Notfunny. Notfunnyonebit.”

They were almost alongside Brakedown when Rodimus took a misstep and stumbled. Blur caught him by the arm, keeping him upright. “Youokay?” he asked, the frown replaced with genuine concern and worry.

“Um, yeah,” Rodimus gasped. He pressed two fingers into his optics. “Second time that’s happened, and I still don’t know what’s causing it.”

_Is this a glitch in my systems?_ he wondered. _Or worse – did holding the Matrix change me so much I can’t function without it in my chest anymore?_

“Suck it up, boy,” the ancient Autobot commanded. “This’ll all be over in a nanoklick, then you can have as much off-cycle time as you like.”

Override held out her hand. “I’ll be the one to do this,” she said, slipping back into her most regal of tones. “You are fast, Blur, but you’re not of this world – the Key will have to interface with a native to get my planet back into the right time frame.”

Blur nodded and, a little hesitantly, passed over the red disc. Override smiled – a grin that was slightly feral, Rodimus thought. The unpleasant look was there for but a moment, then gone, or at least obscured as the fembot turned and walked _away_ from the lip of the ramp.

“Uh, Override?” Clocker asked. “Shouldn’t you be headed the other way?”

She paused, her back to them, and started to laugh. It began as low, humming snigger then changed – like an engine gearing up – to a higher pitch. The laugh accelerated through the octaves, finally reaching a hideous screeching, cackling crescendo, as Override turned and fixed them all with a horrific, murderous look.

Still laughing, she raised her right foot to waist height and brought it down, stamping on the ground like a petulant protoform. The impact shook and reverberated through the ruined asphalt and, from the point of her toe, cracks and fissures spider-webbed toward the Autobots.

Rodimus tried to move but it was too late – the road beneath his feet broke away, crumbling to powder, and he and his friends tumbled uncontrollably down. A terrified scream ripped from his synthesiser as he spied the filthy brown soil far, far below.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to [lastmaximal](http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showuser=355) and Newsy891 for editoral assistance.

Optics narrowed to slits, he watched the four tiny figures descend. His processor hummed with a thousand calculations, considering and discarding angles and vectors and points of interception, searching for the best plan.

“Can you do it?”

He sniffed. Of _course_ he could do it – not only did he have the experience, he had the hot-headed enthusiasm one needed to try such a hair-brained stunt. That was a benefit of being, well, himself… he lacked neither smarts nor dumb, foolhardy courage.

“Hang on to something,” he grinned, clenching his jaw. “This’ll be easy, but it won’t be all that comfortable,”

“Understood,” his passenger said. He heard the dull thud of metal-on-metal as she took a seat and strapped herself in. Lesser mechs would have been offended, seen it as a slight on their skills. He didn’t. Heck, the only reason he didn’t wear a seatbelt – even though he knew he should – was because it was so damn _boring_.

Ebony fingers flexed around the control yoke, then gripped it tight. He piloted the sleek red craft on a horrific downward vector, matching his targets’ rate of descent. He could see them through the cockpit – Brakedown and Clocker he knew, the other two were unfamiliar. Still, if they were with his old friends then they couldn’t be bad sorts. Not that he had any choice but to catch them all, what with how close together they were huddled.

Man, were they _screaming_. Was he really the only ‘bot on Speedia who was comfortable in the air?

“Null field,” he snapped over his shoulder. The passenger spun in her seat and punched a button on the wall. Behind them both, in the cargo bay, a green light activated and flooded the small space. “Hatch,” he barked, and again his passenger slapped at a control. A section of the crimson hull slid away, just to the left of the green glow.

He puffed a small burst of air from out his olfactory sensors. “Here goes,” he grimaced.

G-forces pummelled his metalwork as he wrenched the yoke up and to the left. His passenger yelped. The ship cut across the path of the falling Transformers and yawed away from them, letting them drop in turn into the cargo bay. Each one hit the green null field and froze in place – mid-scream in most cases, but safe.

Windrazor permitted himself a tiny smug smile and activated the autopilot. Once again, the ship had exceeded his expectations. “We good, boss lady?” he asked his passenger.

She un-clipped her restraints and stood up, striding across to him on those long, curvy legs of hers. She patted his shoulder and Windrazor shivered, just a little, with pleasure.

“We’re good, flyboy,” the passenger said. “We’re very good.”

\-----

It was like his squid dream, but in green.

Suspended as he was, Rodimus could do little but scan around. Blur and the others were hanging in similarly uncomfortable positions. His best friend was wide-opticed and stammering… fastest car on wheels he may be, but Blur had no head for heights.

“Sowe’refinewe’regoodwe’restillalive, Itakeit,” he babbled.

“Alive,” Clocker said with great relief.

“And rescued,” Brakedown added, “by the oldest protoform I know.”

A Transformer ambled across to them. He was powerfully built for a little guy – he would have barely been taller than Scattorshot – with thick black forearms and bulky, finned grey legs. His scarlet torso resembled the nosecone and air intakes of an Earth jet, with an Autobot symbol embossed on his left breast plate. His face bore a wide blue visor, hinting at aged wisdom, as well as a cheeky, youthful grin.

What really caught Rodimus’ attention was the nasty-looking weapon in his right hand – a four-pronged Energon truncheon, each fork crackling crystalline blue. The Transformer spun the weapon casually, flipping it in and around each of the digits on his hand, an obvious expert in its use.

“Mechs,” he said, nodding to Clocker and Brakedown. “Sorry about this, but you’re going to have to hang there for a few klicks more. I have to know these other guys are going to behave themselves before I let them roll around on my ship.”

“Oh come _on_ , Windrazor!” Clocker cried. “I know you weren’t yourself back then, but run through those memory banks! The red guy is Rodimus – the one from the Seti Alpha V jump, and the blue guy… well, that’s Blur.”

The red Transformer gulped. “Blur? Why the frack didn’t you say so!” He reached out and pressed a button on the wall, switching off the green glow. Rodimus and his friends fell to the floor with loud, uncomfortable clangs. “Sorry about that, your majesty.”

“Perfectlyallright,” Blur grumped, dusting himself off. “I’lladmittobeingalittlesuspicious, though. Howdidyouknowwhereweweretocatchus?”

“I told him,” came a soft, feminine voice.

Rodimus growled. Override was sitting in a nearby seat, one leg casually crossed over the other. The traitorous wrench not only had the nerve to drop them off an overpass and then save them – she was _smiling about it_!

Fury erupted in the young cavalier’s Spark and he leaped at her. Windrazor intercepted him, knocking him down mid-pounce with the truncheon. Rodimus rolled with the blow and did a handspring, knocking the smaller robot off his feet. Windrazor grunted and dropped his weapon – Rodimus grabbed for it but his opponent was too fast and kicked it away.

“Back down, proto,” the small mech warned.

“Proto?” Rodimus laughed, activating his arm-mounted vibroblades. “You’re a cycle older than me if you’re lucky!”

“So _you_ think.”

“Out of my way, little guy,” Rodimus sneered. “I need to deck your passenger.”

Windrazor sighed. “Then we’ve got a problem,” he said as he reached around behind himself. “But not for long.”

His right arm snaked out and Rodimus tensed… falling for the feint. With his left hand, Windrazor produced a small blue Energon star and flung it. Rodimus ducked but the projectile hit the wall and ricocheted, slamming into the back of his head. He doubled over, only to feel the star crash into his back. As he fell, the star slammed into him three more times, caroming once more off his head and then back into Windrazor’s outstretched hand.

“Stay down,” he snarled, trying to bind Rodimus’ wrists with humming blue restraints. The cavalier wrenched himself around and shoved, pushing the smaller mech off-balance. Without warning, his optics filled with static and his perceptions swam. He stumbled – only for a moment, he thought – but when he looked up again he was securely cuffed and kneeling on the floor. He’d blacked out again.

Override stood nearby. “I understand your anger,” she said. “I just hope you will understand my explanation.”

“Oh, I understand _perfectly_ ,” Rodimus snapped. “You’ve gone right off the deep end, just like Flame Convoy and Blender – you’re all about the power now! But you realised killing us would bring Optimus Prime here, and then you’d be scrap, so you saved us!”

“ _Optimus_ Prime?” Override asked, confusion warping her faceplate. “Who is that?”

Blur and the others drew around them. “OptimusPrime, leaderoftheAutobotsandcarrierofthesacredlifeforce, the CreationMatrix?” Blur offered. “ThemechwhogaveyouasecondchangeonCybertronafteryoukickedourchassis? Themechtowhomyousworeanalliance? Ringanybells, ladyfemme?”

Override shook her head sadly. “As much as you’re not going to want to hear this, rapid one,” she winced, “I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else.”

Brakedown snorted loudly. “Of all the circuit glitz diode-blowing dimwittery,” he groused. “That was the GTS?”

The former queen of Speedia nodded.

“GTS? What the frell are you all talking about?” Rodimus demanded, straining against his bonds.

“Simmer down,” Windrazor said nastily, raising his truncheon. Override placed her hand on his forearm and stopped him.

“No,” she whispered. “They deserve an explanation – all of them. Take us back to the base… we’ll talk there.”

\-----

The pyramid still loomed tall over the edge of Accel City. While munitions and blaster fire had scarred it, nothing had penetrated its thick walls. Nothing save for Windrazor’s ship – at its approach, a segment of pyramid wall fell away, permitting them entry.

A lifetime ago, the Speedia Ultimate had started in this pyramid – right in the centre, under the watchful optics of thousands of reverently silent racers. The audience was gone but the stands remained, coated by thick layers of grime and dust. No one had been up in the bleachers for a long, long time. The only real change within the pyramid was a new bunker-like structure, built over the starting line. Windrazor landed his ship neatly next to it, and ushered them out.

Rodimus remained bound.

Override transformed and drove toward the bunker, the rest of the group following suit. Windrazor was the last to transform and his alternate mode was, to Rodimus, shocking. The crimson guardsman’s legs split and wrapped around his torso, forming broad wings. His head ratcheted back into his shoulders, allowing his chest to flip up and form a cockpit. His back straightened out into fuselage and tail fins while his truncheon broke in two and snapped into place under the wings. In seconds, he had become a fighter jet very similar to the F-15s Rodimus had seen on Earth.

Still, he didn’t fly. Windrazor spun slowly around to face the bunker, then trundled toward it on spindly landing gears. “Wouldn’t it be faster if you flew?” Rodimus asked.

“Flew? You _are_ crazy,” Windrazor spat. “Everyone knows Transformers can’t fly – especially small-wheeled duds with no Force Chip.” He pulled away, his tiny tyres groaning and protesting the bumpy surface.

Shaking his head, Rodimus followed and ducked into the bunker. Every surface was burnished orange, decorated with gridlines and blue view screens. Blast doors were dropped and locked on all sides, sealing off external chambers. It looked, Rodimus thought, a little like the _Ark_ – the ship Flame Convoy’s freakish bunch had used to get to Animatros. Grimlock had described it as a “generation one junk pile, four million years out of date”, and this place fit the same bill.

Brakedown obviously recognised it. “This is the bridge of our ship,” he breathed as he transformed back to robot mode. “The one that brought us here, after the exile. I used to sit right over there,” he said, gesturing, “manning the surveying screen, trying to find a habitable world.”

“Wow,” Clocker said. The confrontation with his origins had left him a little awestruck.

“Ohyesfinegreatwonderfulnicemuseum, really,” Blur snapped. “Canwegettothepartwheresomeoneexplainswhat’sgoingon, already?”

Override transformed, then sank into a chair near the main command console. “Let Rodimus loose, Windrazor,” she ordered. “I want him to pay attention to what I have to say… and then he can still ‘deck’ me, if he wants to. It’s the least I deserve.”

Windrazor transformed and looked as if he was about to argue, then changed his mind. He yanked the restraints off Rodimus, chipping paint and throwing up sparks, then stormed away. “Gee, thanks,” the cavalier called after him. “Let’s be friends, eh?”

Static crackled in his head. “Rodimus?” asked a voice. It was Swerve, still recovering from his injuries back at the Pits. “I lost you for some time then,” he whispered over the internal communication system shared by the core Autobot team. “Where are you?”

“In the city – the big pyramid,” Rodimus hissed, trying not to attract attention. “Keep this channel open and listen, okay? I think you’ll need to hear this.” Swerve acknowledged, then fell silent.

Blur walked toward Override. He took each step slowly and deliberately, walking at normal pace – not his version of normal, but normal for every other mech in existence. It would have taken a lot of concentration on his part to slow down so drastically, and it did an excellent job of showing just how angry he was. “Start at the beginning,” he said, completely intelligible.

“Uh oh,” Swerve murmured over the communicator. “My brother’s torqued.”

“Do you remember what I said to you, the day you left with the Planet Key?” Override asked. “ _Those offworlders awoke strange tensions amongst us – feelings of violence and aggression we have never known before. To be honest, I'm worried... the races could turn to war._ That’s precisely what happened. We knew not how long you would need the Key, or if it would even _be_ returned when Cybertron was safe. Not only was leadership of our society in the hands of an offworlder, it could no longer be contested. Someone within the ranks realised that, with no Key, the law of succession had been repealed… and made a grab for power.”

“Who?” Rodimus demanded.

“We’ve never known,” Clocker said. “We had thought it was Dirt Boss – him being the logical choice, given Ransack was dead and Crumplezone was gone.”

“And too blasted dumb,” Brakedown added.

“No one ever found Dirt Boss’ remains,” Clocker continued, “and it became something of an accepted myth… that he’d survived his fall, somehow, and had massed the Decepticons into an army.”

Rodimus nodded. “That’s what Override told us when she came to Cybertron – back when she wanted to be friends,” he sneered. “But now I’m thinking it could be Ransack as well – I saw him… well, _three_ of him… back when we arrived! He had the smarts to pull something like this off, right?”

The room fell into uncomfortable silence. Brakedown toed the ground, while Override avoided Rodimus’ gaze.

“What?” he demanded.

Override sighed. “Ransack _is_ dead, Rodimus,” she said quietly. “What you saw was… well, was someone different. Someone else.”

“Oh, like it supposedly wasn’t you that dropped us off Seti Alpha V, you mean?”

“Step off, lad,” Brakedown said. “That was the GTS, not Override.”

“I’ve had just about enough of this garbage,” Rodimus yelled. “Give us some damn answers, right now, or my friends and I are calling for a lift and _leaving_!”

There was silence again – this time fearful. Whatever their other failings, the locals didn’t want the Autobots to go before this was all sorted out. He hated himself for it, but Rodimus was determined to play on those fears for a little while if it meant getting to the truth. With a start, he realised it was how Downshift must have felt the last time they were here – when Rodimus had questioned and criticised him, even compared him with Megatron. _Command… it’s never easy, is it?_

“It’s all connected,” Override whispered. “The war, the Ransacks, the GTS… all of it. There’s been so much that’s happened here on Speedia, in the vorns since we lost the Key, but it all boils back down to one essential set of facts.”

She spoke up. “It wasn’t long after you Autobots took the Key that the hostilities began. At first it was rougher-than-usual racing… within a few megacycles, it was open warfare. Weapons proliferated, faction lines became more divisive, fatalities more frequent. It escalated so fast, like we were all skidding into barriers with no way of braking in time. By the middle of the first vorn, the casualties were so great – the damage to the planet so severe – I feared our world would shake apart before the conflict ceased. And so I authorised the GTS project.”

“Again with the abbreviations,” Rodimus groused.

“Genetically Twinned Simulacrum,” Brakedown chimed in. “In laybot’s terms, a clone. We cloned the Autobot population a couple’a times, slapped different coats of paint on the copies so we didn’t get too confused, and built a massive peacekeeping force.”

Swerve whispered into Rodimus’ audio sensor. “Preposterous,” he spat. “We’re mechanical life forms, we don’t get cloned genetically – we get copied, mass-produced, built to specifications! Look at what we’ve learned about our origins, and the Plasma Energy Chamber – the Transformer race rolled off the assembly line, it didnt arise through cellular division like the humans!”

Rodimus relayed those sentiments in his own words.

Override shook her head. “Oh, but it’s true,” she said. “Remember: the survivors of the First Unicron Wars were banished by Primus. Just how many of us do you think there were, Rodimus? Perhaps 50, spread among three ships and three leaders. Do you think there were adequate raw materials, adequate facilities, on Speedia and on these other worlds to start manufacturing the population you encountered?

“Primus _made_ the Transformers through the Plasma Energy Chamber, yes. But the metal of our bodies came from _his_ body… the energy of our Sparks from _his_ Spark. We arose from his very form, and the ability for us to repeat that process is encoded within our own programming. It was only a matter of time and patience before someone cracked that code.

“That someone,” she said, gesturing across the room, “was Clocker. At least, the _first_ Clocker… who, back on Cybertron, we knew as Theta. He gave us the ability to replicate our bodies and, over time, our clones differentiated themselves through bodywork changes, upgrades and newly-discovered technologies. Eventually, Speedia was enough of a world that we didn’t have to clone ourselves anymore, and so we returned to the more ‘traditional’ methods of creating robotic life.”

“WhichiswhyeveryonehasaForceChipoftheirown,” Blur said suddenly. “Becauseyouraccesstothatwasjustamatterofprogramming, too, soyoucrackeditandsharedthewealtharound, sotospeak.”

Override nodded.

“Andyouwentbacktotheoldwayswhenthewargotworseandworseandworse, butsodidthebadguys – whoevertheyare – becausetheyknewhowtodoit, too!”

Again, Override nodded.

“WhichiswhyBrakedownlooksexactlylikeadeadchassisIsawhanginginThePitsthelasttimewewerehere, albeitblue-on-blueratherthangold-on-tan.”

“Autolander,” Brakedown confirmed. “One of my earliest clones. A great and wonderful mech, even if he never amounted to anything on the race track. Not like that blasted Crumplezone… idiot beefed himself up so much that all we share now’s an alt mode.”

“It explains the Ransack-a-thon I wound up in when we arrived,” Rodimus mused, “but not why the Autobots who attacked them were of the same… sub-species, I guess.”

“Not everyone ‘born’ a Decepticon stays a Decepticon,” Brakedown said. “Back in the day, clones used to switch sides all the time. Remember: we weren’t at war, so what did it really matter if your badge was purple or red? Just meant you raced a little differently.”

Clocker looked up and his face twisted. “I’m a _clone_?” he wailed.

Rodimus’ Spark went out to his little friend, but compassion had to wait. “Assuming, for a moment, I accept the data you’re dumping,” he said, “explain the mad femme who just stomped us off Seti Alpha V, and why she came to Cybertron!”

“Yeah,” Brakedown said sourly. “Last I knew, you’d headed off-world, megacycles ago, to chase down these guys. I even watched you board that giant flying bullet Windrazor designed. What gives?”

Override’s optics dimmed. “I thought our enemies would become careless if I was gone,” she said, sounding pained. “That perhaps I could achieve more by disappearing than I could on the front lines. So… so I used the GTS process on myself and sent my clone to Cybertron. I came here with Windrazor, secreting myself away to try and discern the true identity of the Decepticon leader.”

“So your clone comes to Cybertron,” Rodimus said, ticking points off on his fingers, “kicks the frell out of the Autobots, helps save the universe, comes back here with us, goes power crazy for some unknown reason and drops us off a bridge while you sift data. And what, pray tell, have you uncovered in all of this time?”

She dropped her head, her voice barely audible. “Nothing.”

Rodimus made a disgusted noise, deep in his synthesiser. “Terrific. Lady and gentlebots, we are officially _screwed_.”

“I’minlovewithaclone,” Blur spat. “Thiscyclejustkeepsgettingbetterandbetterandbetter!”

“Maybe,” Windrazor said hauntingly, “and maybe not. We did learn one thing… the name of a mech who’s fought on both sides of the war, and probably has information that’d be useful to us. Trouble is he’s long since gone underground, literally below the surface, where factionalism is outlawed and the races still go on to this day. We never had the mech-power to go looking for him.” He cast his optics around the room. “Not until now, anyway.”

Blur folded his arms. “Timeforanotherfool’serrand – youcanhearthemcoming, now,” he growled.

“Here we go again,” Swerve muttered over the communicator. “Swing by and get me – Incinerator and I will be ready.”

“Who are we looking for _this_ time?” Rodimus asked.

Windrazor grinned, looking far younger than his outlook and skills suggested. “One of the veterans of the track – a Theta model, like Clocker, but with a foul attitude. Crimson, black and white. Last we knew, he had an Autobot insignia spray-painted onto his hood despite the rules of the underground races. Has something of a problem with his exhaust system – tends to flame out and melt anyone that comes too close to him.

“It’s probably why they call him Slag.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Go! Gogogogogogo! Scootskeedaddlescat! We’llhold’emoff!”

Rodimus wrenched his steering to the right and plunged into the tunnel. He could hear Incinerator’s tiny engines and Windrazor’s pounding footfalls, just behind. His processor was reeling – and not just because of the nearness of their escape.

The pilot hadn’t been kidding. Mech-power was _essential_ for reaching the underground races. With Swerve still out of commission – despite his claims otherwise – Windrazor and Override had come out of hiding and onto the battlefield. It barely seemed to matter. The seven of them had only just managed to fight their way to the tunnel and, now, only two of them had made it inside.

That much success was due to Blur – another thing to be shocked about. Sadly, Rodimus wondered where his peaceful, good-natured best friend had gone. The true Blur, the mech he’d known for centuries, was buried beneath a veneer of plasteel-hard grit. Tragedy and responsibility had reforged the data courier into a warrior chief who wielded twin plasma rifles with unerring… and deadly… accuracy. The rest of the team were dinged, scratched and scorched but Blur was untouched, a vengeful blue wraith that sliced through enemy lines with little pause and even less mercy. It was a terrifying sight to behold.

Blur had assumed command the moment they were attacked, and his orders had kept everyone on-line and functional. Even when the waves of Ransacks dropped back and the heavy bombardment began – some kind of densely-armoured, black and gold Crumplezone clones called “Landbullets” – he maintained composure and lead the counter-assault. By whipping Clocker, Brakedown and the others into a team, Blur had created a firebreak to allow Rodimus, Incinerator and Windrazor to escape.

_I hope I can lead like that, when my time comes,_ the cavalier thought. _The fate of our race might depend on it… as Speedia’s fate depends on Blur._

The tunnel was narrow and slick, and Rodimus quickly found himself skidding around. He pushed thoughts of Blur from his processor and concentrated. Incinerator zipped past him, but overhead – the little Mini-con was using the _whole_ of the tunnel in ways a larger vehicle could not. Rodimus could no longer hear Windrazor, but there was a horrid screeching noise behind him… perhaps the pilot had fallen over?

Even if he’d wanted to stop and check, his brakes wouldn’t have allowed it. There was no traction at all – the tunnel was as smooth as glass, and inertia propelled him on far more than acceleration. Only when the tunnel flattened out, widened and finally vomited them into a spacious ochre cavern could Rodimus lock his discs and come to a halt. Windrazor, arms and legs splayed wildly, came to a crashing stop behind him, victim of an unexpected, half-kilometre slide on his skid plate.

“Fun, but painful,” he groused.

“Next time, try it with a board,” Rodimus quipped as he transformed. “We’ll make an extreme sportsman out of you yet.”

“A what now?”

They were in a large red cavern filled with twisting, turning roadways. The lanes looped and tumbled over one another, all hairpin turns and vicious curves, filling nearly every scrap of available space. Engine noise echoed throughout the chamber, a constant drone punctuated, every now and again, by a squeal of tyres, a howl of pain, or the detonation of a mechanical life form.

“Charming,” Rodimus deadpanned.

“It’s a frelling _paradise_ ,” Incinerator breathed, one of his little red feet twitching on the ground. “Lemme at it!”

The cavalier could feel it too – that desperate need to drive and keep driving, the lust for acceleration that overtook the circuits of everyone on Speedia. Funny it should be stronger here, underground, than on the surface. Override… well, her clone… had claimed the Planet Key couldn’t interact with the soil to end the time-acceleration affecting the world. But if that was a side effect of the radiation, and the radiation made you want to race, and the desire to race was most urgent down here, then…

A plume of flame erupted in front of him, scalding his faceplate and driving him back. Rodimus brushed madly at his smouldering bodywork, stamping out a dozen mini-fires, snorting distastefully at the molten metal that stuck to his fingers. Glancing forward, he saw a small scarlet and white vehicle, idling a few metres away. Its enormous, side-mounted, three-piped exhausts were facing the wrong way, running along its hood like missile pods, still spurting with the last of the inferno. In the centre of the conflagration was a huge Autobot insignia, airbrushed onto the hood in silver paint.

“What’choo think you doing there, proto?” someone yelled belligerently. “You thinkin’ blank space mean you can just _stand_ around gawking? Only reason there any spare room in this place is so Slag can vent his righteous fury after another loser’s gone down to the flames! That tunnel ain’t for entry, it’s for the exiting of the fire!”

Incinerator coughed up an intake port full of smog. “Nice attitude,” he growled.

_Like you can talk_ , Rodimus thought. He turned to the newcomer. “Hey there, um, Slag,” he said, suppressing a slight chuckle. “We’re hoping you can help us out. We’re looking to…”

“Help?” bellowed the car. Its exhausts flipped back over to face its rear bumper, then it rocked forward and transformed. As expected, Slag looked a lot like Clocker – older, more weathered, with some nasty scars across his face – but seemed to radiate might. Perhaps it was his Matrix-enhanced sensors, perhaps it was something else, but Rodimus got the feeling the little guy was a Crumplezone-class bruiser.

“See, you got something totally round the wrong way,” the racer continued. “Slag don’t help nobody, except for Slag. Slag looks out for Slag, and does whatever Slag wants. And the _reason_ for this, stranger, is because Slag is the best!”

A tickle caught in Rodimus’ synthesiser.

The crimson robot caught the look and scowled. “What the frell is wrong with you crazy mechs?” he demanded. “You making fun of Slag? You think Slag is something that can be joked about, laughed about, taken in vain?” 

He made the mistake of looking down at Incinerator, who was already giggling softly.

“Is Slag funny to you punks?”

That was the last straw. Rodimus erupted in a sump-busting guffaw, doubling over and clutching his heaving midsection. Incinerator had fallen over backwards, roaring with laughter, banging his tiny fists on the ground and pleading for mercy.

“Stop it!” Slag howled. “Stop laughing at Slag! Slag is _not funny_ , do you understand Slag?”

Rodimus dropped to one knee, steadying himself with his hand. He shook his head, still choking with laughter, and tried to concentrate. “Just… just stop talking,” he gasped, his voice tittering. “Otherwise we’re going to keep…”

“Slag it!” Incinerator suddenly boomed, then laughed again. Rodimus lost control, falling to both knees and leaning forward, pressing his head to the ground as he howled with humour.

“You! Experimental freaky-mech!” Slag yelled, stabbing a finger at Windrazor. “Tell Slag why those idiots are laughing so much!”

“They’re offworlders,” he said quietly. “And, if I remember the files properly, well… ‘slag’ is a curse word on their planet.”

“Curse word? Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning, well… waste by-product.”

Rodimus breathed out, long and sharp, clearing the silliness from his frame. It was too late – his face dark, Slag transformed, pulled a u-turn and sped away from them, back onto the impossibly-coiled race track. The cavalier moved to follow but couldn’t get up – his shoulders, his knee joints, seemed to be fused in place, and once again his head swam with poor reception. He only just managed to gasp an order to Incinerator before blacking out once again.

He woke – according to his internal chronometer – less than a minute later. Windrazor was by his side and, with a few deft twists of a sonic screwdriver, loosened Rodimus’ joints so he could roll over and sit up. The pilot grimaced in apology as he started to reconnect the errant limbs… an excruciatingly painful process.

“Don’t stress it,” he said encouragingly, “we’re all of us prototypes, on this world.”

“It’d be nice if that explained what the frell is wrong with me,” Rodimus murmured, thinking dark thoughts. No one, in the history of the Transformer race, had ever possessed the Creation Matrix and then handed it back. The sacred life-force was only passed on at the moment of the Prime’s death. Because none of them survived, no one knew if a past-Prime could function without the Matrix. _Does that mean I’m destined to die without it?_ he wondered. _Processor shutting down, joints seizing up… what’s next? Spontaneous engine combustion? Fluid from every output valve?_

“What did he mean,” Rodimus asked. “when he called you an experiment?”

Windrazor tightened another connection, making the cavalier yelp. “You might’ve noticed I’m not like the ‘bots around here,” he said softly. “Weird alt mode, no Force Chip, the ability to generate Energon weaponry rather than just extensions.”

“I noticed that throwing star, yeah,” Rodimus said, self-consciously rubbing the back of his head. “And the club thingie.”

The pilot sighed loudly. “In one of the first battles of the war, there was a pretty nasty betrayal,” he said. “A young, hot-headed warrior by the name of Sideburn got himself well and truly scrapped. Didn’t sit too well with a decrepit old mech by the name of X-Brawn, who’d been mentoring the proto. He blamed himself for the youngster being in near-fatal stasis lock.

“By then, the others had started frigging around with the GTS idea, and were trying all sorts of ways to manipulate the Spark of a living mech. X-Brawn, figuring he’d lived long enough and had little left to give, offered his life force to replenish Sideburn, to bring the youngster online and give the Autobots an able-bodied soldier once more.”

Rodimus whistled. “You can do that with a Spark?”

Windrazor smiled grimly. “Not so much, as it turns out,” he said. “Clocker pulled old X-Brawn’s Spark out with a magnetic capture device – tube-shaped thing with a claw, very ugly tech – and force-fused it with what was left of Sideburn. What happened next remains in the realm of speculation but, near as we can tell, the Sparks merged, mutated Sideburn’s bodywork and finally spat out a warrior that was somewhere between the both of them, yet totally new. _Me_.”

He twisted the screwdriver. Rodimus yelled out as his left knee popped back into place.

“I’ve got both mech’s sets of memories and skills, so I guess wisdom is the perfect complement to recklessness,” Windrazor continued. “Never could get either of their Force Chips to turn up, though. Had no trouble pulling Energon out of thin air instead, even if my alt mode’s all but useless. Funniest thing was this new aptitude I had for being in the air… meant we could finally build some new ships and get first airborne, then off-world, again.”

_Crazy, but it fits_ , Rodimus said to himself. _In a lot of ways he’s not much older than me – that’s the enthusiasm and youthful energy of Sideburn coming out. Then he gets all tough and battle-worn, which is the wit and wisdom of X-Brawn streaming in. No wonder he’s so blasted dangerous with a weapon in his hands._

A scream ripped through Rodimus’ processor, ringing in his audio sensors. “This mech is crazy!” Incinerator was yelling over the inter-Autobot communicator. “I’m keeping ahead of him but he’s going to either fry or skewer me any second! I need some frelling back-up, like, a breem ago!”

Rodimus stood up, flexed his joints and transformed. “Trouble in paradise,” he shouted to Windrazor as he fired his engine. Speeding onto the track, he red-lined his systems to catch up to Incinerator and Slag. _What the Unicron is going on now?_

“I told him to pull over, so you could talk to him,” Incinerator was saying. Rodimus could hear laser fire in the background. “Then he started up again, all ‘Slag this and Slag that’, and, well, I started laughing.”

“ _Brilliant_ strategy.”

“Get bent.”

The cavalier caught up to them quickly, pulling off moves and taking corners his previous, truck-like body would never have negotiated. As he weaved through the other vehicles contesting the seemingly never-ending race, his forward scanners quickly locked into the flailing, fleeing Incinerator… and the mini-dreadnaught that was Slag.

With his Force Chip in place, the crimson racer looked wholly different. Two blood red cannons poked from a turret on his hood. From the centre of his bonnet rose a glowing red Energon horn that curved cruelly upwards. Incinerator was using the pulse blasters wired into his brake lights but to no effect – every blast deflected harmlessly off Slag’s windshield, which acted like an armoured hood around his dashboard and cockpit.

Slag, meanwhile, was a dead-optic shot. He loosed two blasts, each of which shattered one of Incinerator’s tail lights. Disarmed, the Mini-con started to juke and swerve across the track. Only his speed kept him ahead of Slag’s deadly accurate firing pattern, and Rodimus knew it was but a matter of time before he locked onto Incinerator. Not that he could exactly draw close enough to help… giant flames spewed from Slag’s six exhaust pipes, and their gases formed a buffer that was hard to drive against. _No wonder he’s the champion of this oil-sport. Still, hot gasses… hmm_.

There was only one thing to do… and if it didn’t instantly kill him, it might just even work. He pushed his speed further again, sucking in extra power from the Force Chip, and trimmed his rear-mounted wings. Slamming into the hot exhaust gases was like hitting an updraft and Rodimus rose, glider-like, into the air.

He sailed up on a 45 degree angle, as if he was riding an invisible ramp, then transformed and landed heavily on Slag’s trunk. There was barely enough room for one of his feet so he reached out and hung grimly onto the red laser turret, determined to try negotiation one last time.

“You _are_ some kinda crazy ‘bot – Slag don’t give no rides!”

“If you stopped talking in the third mech for an astrosecond and listened,” Rodimus gulped as Slag took a left-hand turn, “you’d know I don’t want a ride, just information!”

“Should’a thought of that,” came the reply, complete with a savage slide-turn to the right, “before you made fun of Slag! Culturally insensitive much, Mr Offworlder?”

That sank it. “Well, _bah weep grah na weep ni ni bong_ to you too, jerk!” Rodimus snarled. He jammed his other foot into the ground and pulled back on the turret with both hands. His Matrix-enhanced frame was strong enough to stop their motion dead, throwing them back over themselves. Slag landed bonnet-first, driving his Energon horn into the asphalt and sticking fast. Rodimus rolled and tumbled, slamming bodily into the track’s side wall and bouncing back onto the track.

“Ouch,” he groaned.

“Slag don’t like this, not one bit!” the crimson racer spat. He transformed, accomplishing little. Instead of being stuck bonnet-first in vehicle mode, he was stuck on his back in robot mode, legs and arms kicking uselessly in the air.

Rodimus started to walk toward him, only to throw himself to the ground as a jet of flame rocketed straight at him. Slag had flipped his exhausts again, wielding them like arm-mounted flamethrowers as he swept the area. A cluster of racers made the mistake of getting too close and exploded – other contestants threw on their brakes.

“Can the waste by-products on your world do this, ya bastich?” Slag roared, the tongues of fire licking ever-closer. “Well, can they?”

“Eat this, ya damn Sparkler Mini-bot!”

Incinerator zoomed past in the wrong direction, his sleek form slipping under the inferno, and ploughed straight into Slag’s face. His hammerhead front scoop knocked the aggressive firebug offline. Incinerator transformed and favoured his right arm – which, in vehicle mode, was the scoop. “Mech’s got a head like one of them things Kicker used to talk about… those big lizards that look like Grimlock.”

“And about as many smarts, too,” Rodimus agreed, coming gingerly to his feet. “Yeesh.” He strode over to the unconscious Slag and frowned. “Not that I’m criticising you, Incinerator,” he mused, “but how the heck are we going to get answers out of him now?”

He heard a smooth click, and felt the familiar sensation of a gun being pressed into his back. “That depends,” said an eerie, stereo-sounding voice, “on what you wanna ask. You might even find the answers are right behind ya.”

Rodimus turned, _very_ slowly. The track had filled up with Decepticons. His old friends, the Ransack triplets, had their guns trained on him. A group of Landbullets – some in robot mode, others in vehicle mode – had their massive cannons aimed at Incinerator. Fast as he was, even the Mini-con couldn’t avoid that much firepower and so threw up his hands in surrender. Behind them all, Rodimus could see his team – Override, Clocker, Brakedown and Windrazor – bound in glowing shackles. An unfamiliar mech held one end of their bonds, and threw Rodimus a wry grin.

“Betcha I know what yer thinkin’,” the odd robot said. “Yer thinkin’ yer friend, th’ king, is still out there somewhere runnin’ riot ‘mongst ma boys. True it is, but it ain’t gonna do ya no good. I been wantin’ that purty little spoiler o’ yours for some time, proto, and even he cain’t git back fast eenuf to stop me ripping it outta yo hide.”

The cavalier frowned, confused. “Dirt Boss?”

The mech let go of the chains and rolled forward, into the light of the still-flickering fires. What Rodimus saw was only half a Transformer. Dirt Boss was a twisted, mangled wreck of a being – part car, part robot in the worst possible way. His head, shoulders and torso rose from a warped part-version of his vehicle mode, one of the tyres inflated while the rest sat low to the ground. His left arm was backwards and at an odd angle, his head lolled to one side with a CR-feed hanging from his mouth. Most disturbing of all, his Force Chip – last seen hurtling, with him, over the side of Seti Alpha V – jutted from his chest, like a vibroblade left in the wound, glowing red and distorting the purple paint work around it.

“Yep, the rumours’re true,” the outlaw drawled. “I’m runnin’ the show here and, now that Override’s brought her pretty little chassis outta hidin’, I’ma plannin’ to run your posse _into the ground_.”


	5. Chapter 5

Swerve sank back into the CR chamber’s headrest, pinching his optics with his fingertips. _At least my fingers are intact,_ he thought dryly. _The last couple of times I’ve been on the injured list, it’s all been to do with my darn hands._

His hands were sound, even if the arms to which they connected were not. The chamber was doing its usual slow job – nanites were both repairing his damaged internals and regenerating missing bodywork. Within a cycle… maybe two… he’d be whole again. “Yeah,” he sneered bitterly to himself. “All fixed up and ready to get ripped apart for being too slow. Great.”

He glared at his right forearm, imagining he could see the invisible nanites at work. Which he couldn’t, of course – not even Checkpoint could see the sub-microscopic machines – but at least it would ease the boredom for a couple of astroseconds. _I really hate the way the anaesthetic sub-routine of CR chambers doesn’t work on my processor_ , he thought glumly. _There’s no pain but there’s plenty of boredom_.

Red lightning arced across his forearm, making him jump in place. It wasn’t isolated – three more sparks crawled over his shoulders, while other tendrils wreathed around his legs and hips. Each electric flash left behind a regenerated section of bodywork, a newly-knitted piece of superstructure… a healed chassis.

The door to the CR chamber hissed open and the metallurgist staggered out, stunned. _I’ve been conscious through enough repair cycles to know that wasn’t normal_ , he mused, _so what the frell was it?_

He turned to the side and felt his jaw servos loosen with surprise. His twin brother, Blur, was leaning on the wall of the chamber, black palms spread flat across its metal. From each of his fingers jumped red lightning, while his hands were vibrating in place.

The data courier smiled. “Justlendingsomeofmyspeedtotheprocess,” he said lightly, as if he was doing something utterly normal. “IfI’mdoingitright, thenyouwon’tbeslowerthaneveryoneelseanymore, either. IthinkI’veacceleratedyoursystemstomatchtherestofSpeedia.”

Swerve didn’t answer. He ran to the window of the med bay and looked out – the freeways and overpasses of Speedia, once seemingly empty to his optics, were overflowing with racing, fighting, warring, _dying_ Transformers. “I’d say I was happy to see it,” he whispered, “but it would be a lie.”

“Thenit’stimewegotaroundtostoppingit,” Blur replied, stepping away from the chamber. “Rodimusandtheothershavebeencaptured – turnsoutDirtBossreallyisbehindallofthis! Well, he’sbehindthewar, atleast. Butthat’sgottabeoursecondpriority, fornow.”

“Second? What the frack could be more important than saving our friends?”

Blur held up his hands – lightning still jumped between his fingers. “Slowingthisworlddown,” he said. “Swerve, onthisplanetI’mabletodothingsthatnoTransformershouldbeableto. Icanacceleratenotonlymyself, butobjectsandpeopleandprojectilesandweapons. ItookdownanentireplatoonofCrumplezones, forMatrix’ssake! Ifthat’shappeningtome, andI’mfasterthaneveryoneelseandsousedtothislevelofsystemwear, what’sitdoingtothepopulationofSpeedia?”

Swerve nodded. “And our friends.” He snapped his fingers. “Rodimus! That’s why he’s passing out all the time – he’s using the Force Chip to stay revved, and it’s wearing out his internals! Oh man… he’s probably on the verge of stasis lock by now.”

“Whichiswhywe’vegottamove, fastfastfast,” Blur said. “Andtheonlywaytohelpourfriendsistoleavethemtotheirowndevicesfornow… whilewefindOverride'sGTSandgetthePlanetKeyback.”

\-----

Rodimus felt his head swim and gritted his teeth. The sensation would pass… it _had_ to pass if they were going to stay alive. Just because Dirt Boss was now a hideous, filthy, disgusting, twisted, malodorous, stinking, sump-churning mess of a crippled Transformer didn’t make him any less dangerous. In fact, it probably just worsened his attitude…and it had been bad enough before.

“You got any idea whut it’s like to slam inta a solid surface frum thet high up, Roddy my boy?” the outlaw drawled, drawing closer to Rodimus. The cavalier winced at the stench – one part grease, one part ruined oil, four parts CR fluid. “Well, I don’t, either. I done passed out somewhere ‘round the lower levels of the off-ramps, so I weren’t conscious when muh processor smacked inta the deck. Kinda glad fer that, as yuh kin imagine.”

He rolled, lopsided, around Rodimus, then slapped him in the back of the head. The Autobot dropped to his knees, wincing at another blow to the already damaged area. “But thet don’ mean I don’ bear yuh some fiery ill will, boy!” Purple fists flashed again and again, burrowing into Rodimus’ chassis. He rolled onto his front and tried to cover up.

“Get offa him, you freak!” That was Incinerator, no doubt trying to make up for his recent stupidity. From the corner of his optic, Rodimus saw the Mini-con leap onto Dirt Boss’ back and tear at the mess of hoses and life-support wiring. The outlaw howled with rage, his misshapen arms unable to reach the frenetic attacker.

Incinerator whooped… then screamed. A massive black hand closed around him, breaking his arms and legs with a single squeeze. He coughed once, then screamed again as a Land Bullet drone tightened its grip, then dropped him to the floor. The Mini-con bounced once and then rolled to a stop… broken, hideously warped, but blessedly still online.

“You slagging coward,” Rodimus hissed.

“Hey! Watch it!” howled Slag. He'd come back online but still pinned to the road nearby.

Rodimus ignored him. “Running mechs into concrete barriers, hitting ‘bots upside the back of the head, having your flunkies take on Mini-cons… you’re a coward, Dirt Boss, and you’ve never been anything different!”

Dirt Boss chuckled – it sounded like a drain unblocking – and hauled Rodimus up by the neck. Again, his stench was overpowering. “Coward’s just ‘nother word for a mech who knows his strategy,” he growled. “Yer precious Override there went to ground for a few vorns ta try ‘n flush me out, and it did no good. I bin on the front lines fightin’, telling muh mechs whut ta do, winnin’ this here war! That’s leadership, boy – summit you don’ know nuttin about!”

He was thrown across the tarmac, head first into the concrete barrier. But the words stung far more than the impact.

_He’s right,_ Rodimus chastised himself silently. _He’s completely right. What the frell do I know about leadership? I’ve sat back, let Blur call every play, and even when I do take charge I screw it up royally! I’m in over my head, being ripped apart by piranhacons and squidmechs – just like in my dream – and all my friends are going to die._

He looked across at the others. Clocker, Brakedown, Override and Windrazor were struggling against their shackles, all to no avail. _They’re going to die just like I’m going to die… Matrix withdrawal’s kicking in, and bad. There’s no way I’m going to be able to pull my sorry skid plate out of this mess. But maybe… maybe, I can save the others. If I’m clever enough._

“You’re a piece of slag, Dirt Boss,” Rodimus yelled. “Cold, congealed slag. Not even fit to scrape off the bottom of my foot servos, that’s you!”

Dirt Boss trundled over, laughing. Behind him, Rodimus could see Slag fuming.

“Yeah, you heard me, you slagging coward – you’re a wretch, a piece of refuse, a total cast-off. Junk! Garbage! The very definition of slag!”

The outlaw didn’t notice the heat haze building around them.

“You’re so slagging awful, so slagging stupid, so Primus-damned slagging _dumb_ that I can’t stand the slagging sight of you!”

Dirt Boss was almost on him when the howl rang out. It was followed, an astrosecond later, by the noise of tearing asphalt. Every head turned to see Slag rip himself free of the roadway and turn to Rodimus, exhausts pointed and smoking. "You shut your damn mouth!” the racer bellowed, his pride wounded beyond words.

Rodimus transformed and peeled out, barely avoiding the deluge. Viciously hot jets of flame poured over the spot where he’d just been – the spot containing Dirt Boss. The outlaw roared in agony, mangled arms flailing at the firestorm erupting across his body. His tyres sagged and began to melt, the hoses and wiring that kept him alive smoked and sizzled. Panes of glass in his body splintered musically.

The Landbullets and Ransacks abandoned their prisoners and rushed to their leader’s aid. Rodimus cut across them, trailing smoke. They stopped in their tracks, confused, and were engulfed in flame. Slag, consumed by righteous fury, was sweeping his exhausts in an arc, trying to draw bead on his fleeing target. Rodimus was counting on it – he weaved a path through the Decepticons, letting Slag incinerate every last one of them, then turned and headed back toward Dirt Boss.

A charred black figure loomed out of the inferno. Dirt Boss roared bestially, melting fingertips reaching for Rodimus. The cavalier couldn’t turn in time and so accelerated, slamming into the burning Decepticon and pushing him back. He knew, full well, what was coming next. Those massive wheels spun, that hellish engine kicked over, and Dirt Boss started chasing him. Rodimus grinned darkly and pumped it up a notch, all but flying back up the tunnel to the surface. Head and body on fire, Dirt Boss followed.

_That’s it, you big buffoon,_ Rodimus willed silently. _Come and get me. I started this war by dropping you off the roadway, and I’m damn well going to finish it before my Spark extinguishes for good._

\-----

“Where are we going to find her?”

“Beatsme.”

“So we’re going to, what, criss-cross the planet at high speed until we _stumble_ across her somewhere?”

“Haveyougotabetteridea?”

Swerve locked his brakes and came to a halt. “Actually, I do.” Blur pulled up a metre or so ahead and listened.

“Think about it for a second,” Swerve said. “You’ve spent more time with the GTS than anyone else. Okay, you thought she was Override but, still, you guys had… well, some sort of connection.”

The speedster transformed and shifted uncomfortably. “Yeahallrightsowhat?”

“Well, what did the two of you talk about? I heard you, over the communicator, when you told Rodimus that ‘Override’ had a one-track mind. What did you mean?”

He watched Blur’s metal brow furrow. “ShewasobsessedwithhavingthePlanetKey, that’sall,” he said, annoyed. “Powerpowerandmorepower, justlikeFlameConvoyandBlenderbeforeher! There’snothingmoretoitthanthat!”

Swerve shook his head. “Actually, I think you’ve missed something. Blender wanted his planet’s Key for physical power. Flame Convoy…” he shuddered. “Well, for him the Key _was_ power, even though he didn’t quite realise what it was doing to him or Animatros. Very different cases, brother. Which one does the GTS fall into?”

Blur’s head snapped up. “ _Political_ power,” he gasped. “Whenwecamehere, nooneknewwhatthePlanetKeyactuallydidtoTransformers. Itwasjustasymbol, liketheMatrixwas, ofleadership. EvenwhentheGTScametoCybertronlookingforit, itwastorestablishdemocracyonSpeedia!”

“So…?”

“Soshe’llbeoffleadinganassaultsomewhere, tryingtocrownherselfqueenthroughbattle!”

Swerve activated his metallurgy software, tracking vibrations in the planet’s basalt layer. Since they had been repaired by Primus, the devices were more potent and sensitive than ever. They could do things of which no technology should be capable… like tell him that the heaviest emanations had their epicentre 20km or so to the north. Scanning that way, he could see explosions in the air.

“That way first,” he said, gesturing with a flick of his hood. “It’s the biggest source of vibration on the planet right now…”

“… soit’llbethebiggestbattle! Let’sgo!”

\-----

“Let’s go, smokey! Wassamatter, you can’t keep up with the pathetic off-worlder?”

A fireball streaked past and slammed into the road, forcing Rodimus to weave around it. He wondered, idly, what chunk of Dirt Boss’ ruined body it had once been. A few kilometres ago, the outlaw had started flinging the ruins of his chassis at the cavalier, making their race even more dangerous.

_Not that I really understand what’s keeping him going_ , Rodimus grimaced. _He’s half dead, his life support system has melted away, he’s frelling well_ on fire _and I’m damn sure his fuel system went up as we came out of the tunnel. How can he still be on my tail?_

It was at that moment that his scanners went dead and his engine conked out. He skidded, blind and without power, across the road and slammed into the barrier. Forcing his will into his systems, Rodimus cold-booted and regained control, steering quickly but unsteadily away from the wall. “Dammit!” he cried.

“Oh, I’ma gonna damn you, boy,” Dirt Boss cackled from the read. “Damn yuh t’ the inferno! Gonna snuff out this here fire by rollin’ over you!”

Rodimus ignored him. As ruined as Dirt Boss was externally, Rodimus was feeling internally… neither of them was going to survive this race. All that was left to be decided was who would drop first.

He jinked his way between pot holes and danced through sudden hails of laser fire. Both sides, Autobot and Decepticon, fired on them as they went past. Dirt Boss even copped a few rounds from his own soldiers, but seemed not to pay it any mind. His fiery gaze was focused solely on his prey, on running him down. And he was getting faster.

Faster…

_Sweet Primus,_ Rodimus exclaimed. _He’s speeding up but, at the same time, his own degeneration is slowing down. That’s not possible, especially on Speedia, unless…_

His processor reeled. Dirt Boss had crashed into the ground beneath Seti Alpha V, losing consciousness on the way down. No one had seen him for vorns but, when he returned, it was as a misshapen wreck of a mech, partly run through with his own Force Chip. He’d healed in a strange, twisted way… like a human being’s bone that hadn’t been set properly… as if the natural healing process of a Transformer, the one that was guided and accelerated by CR chambers, had happened all at once. All out of control.

Playing a hunch, Rodimus activated his rear scanners, allowing himself to see through Matrix-enhanced optics. He zoomed in on the Force Chip… which was cracked, right through the centre. Downshift’s words, long ago, came back to him. The Chips didn’t warp or bend or break, they did not change shape, they refused to be manipulated or altered. So what would happen, then, if one of them _did_ break somehow, spilling their Primus-given energy out into the already charged atmosphere?

_We’ve been wrong since the moment we landed – frell, since before that_ , he realised as a sickening feeling trickling into his sump. _What’s happened on this world – the acceleration, the warping or the laws of physics. It’s got nothing to do with the Planet Key. It’s Dirt Boss’ own Force Chip! It cracked, and he’s unknowingly manipulating its energies! That’s how he’s still functioning when he should be deep into stasis lock… how he healed, albeit wrongly, when he should have died. Through sheer force of will, he’s bending time to his desires… and the whole planet is caught up in the effect!_

Rodimus glanced forward. The ramp to Seti Alpha V was close by. A plan formulated in his mind… dangerous, but why the frell not? He was going to die anyway. He knew, now, that this entire mess had been his fault and his fault alone. If his life was the price to pay for rectifying the mistake, then so be it.

He pulled to the left and darted toward the cavernous jump, pulling energy from his Force Chip and flaring his wings. He didn’t stop to think about how scared he was and simply drove off, soaring over the gap. He barely registered the flight, focusing instead on the landing. The moment he felt his tyres bite into the asphalt he transformed, landing unceremoniously on his skid plate and scraping along for a hundred metres. Yelling in pain, he spread his hands and feet to stop himself and, finally, came up on one knee.

The roadway bounced as Dirt Boss touched down, having taken a jump his bulk should never have crossed. But Rodimus was beyond worrying about the physics involved – they didn’t matter. A mad mech had twisted the environment of an entire world to his liking, without realising it. Physical laws didn’t matter anymore. _Thankfully, Dirt Boss is too dumb to understand what he’s achieved – someone like Megatron could have used that cracked Key to conquer the universe in a matter of breems. My stupidity doomed everyone, and Dirt Boss’ ignorance saved them… now, my singular dumb-assedness has to finish it._

Dirt Boss roared, voice merging with engine noise, and bore down on Rodimus. The cavalier set his jaw and shunted a small supply of Energon into the windshields beneath his forearms. The gold-tinted sheets – harder than diamond – began to hum slightly as they morphed into dangerous vibro-blades. Dirt Boss drew closer and, at the last possible moment, Rodimus threw both arms forward.

The impact was horrific, and he felt his shoulder and knee servos buckle and break. He wailed, the pain beyond description, but somehow managed to keep his arms straight. The vibro-blades bit into the cracks in the Force Chip and cleaved, sawing at the fragile artifact. Rodimus watched events unfold in slow-motion… the Chip breaking, pieces flying everywhere, the flames ripping through his armour, the shocked look passing over Dirt Boss’ features. The Decepticon’s body jerked, just once, then faded into the steely grey of death. Trapped in the flaming carcass, Rodimus was dragged limply backwards until it lost its momentum. It came to a rest on the edge of a pot hole, the cavalier’s broken legs dangling uselessly in the ditch.

He felt his systems splutter, and a wrenching pain deep in his Spark. “Only mattered… who went down first,” he gasped, and surrendered to the darkness.

A second later, a torrent of crimson energy loosed from the entwined bodies and arced skywards.

\-----

“Well, it’salwaysnicewhenafemmetakestimetoaccessorisebeforeabattle.”

Swerve shook his head. The Transformer below them, at the head of the battle, shared a Override’s design but not her colouring. Red decals, similar to Force Chip lightning, stretched down her legs, while heavy black armour broke up sections of white and chrome. The GTS had slotted the Planet Key into her decelerator laser and was firing it with abandon, dropping mechs left and right. Most disturbingly, she fired on Decepticons _and_ Autobots, laughing her eerie revving cackle. Every now and again she stamped on the ground, opening chasms that swallowed Transformers.

The metallurgist looked at his brother. “How do you want to play it?”

Blur shrugged. “It’sgonnabeanastybreak-upnomatterwhat.”

Thunder rolled across the skies, and they looked up. “Ohslag,” Blur muttered. “IsthatwhatIthinkitis?”

Swerve pointed at the swathe of red lightning, drinking data in through his fingertips. “Unknown energy, at least partially related to the Force Chips… might be a temporal component, too.” He coughed. “Damned if that isn’t the same sort of energy that’s running through every single chunk of this planet, right now. And…” He pointed, with his other hand, toward the GTS. “And the Planet Key’s pulsing with the same wavelength, like a homing beacon or something.”

Blur cocked his head strangely, then smiled. “Wishmeluck,” he said, and was gone.

\-----

He knew what he had to do.

Blur zipped through the combatants, dodging laser blasts and leap-frogging yawning cracks in the surface. Intellectually, he knew everyone on Speedia was moving as fast as he usually did… but he also knew he was moving _faster again_. He’d blamed it on the Planet Key but, for whatever reason, he was wrong. That lighting in the sky was the solution… he knew it. Just like red lightning had helped save Cybertron from the black hole, so too would it save Speedia from itself.

Others would question the hypothesis, want to stop and analyse it to make sure they were right. But he was a simple ‘bot. Faith was enough.

The GTS came up fast, and his sump dropped. She was beautiful… so, so beautiful. Streets ahead of her template – clones they may have been, but there were still differences in his optics. He’d been unwilling to think in human terms before but, yes, he was _in love_ with the demented, psychotic femme and, despite all she’d done, he did not want to see her harmed. Maybe, after all of this was over, he could reach her – save her. But first, they all had to be alive and safe from war.

Blur heard the cackle for but an astrosecond. Then, he channelled his velocity into his fist and her jaw, instantly knocking her offline. As she fell, he snatched up her decelerator laser and raised it to the sky. He locked his knee servos and braced for the impact he knew was coming.

It hit him, quite literally, like a thunderbolt. The crackling energy cascaded into the Planet Key, making the weapon jitter and shake in his hand. Grimly he hung on, determined to let the ancient artifact absorb ever last erg of escaped power. When the lightning ceased and his body ached, every screw and rivet worked loose, he swung the decelerator laser to the ground and _fired_.

The whine of taxed power cells deafened him, but still he persisted. The energy of the Planet Key, of speed itself, was forced through the filters of the weapon and altered into a torrent of time-bending deceleration. Blur _knew_ it would work, just as a similar weapon had almost crippled him, back on Cybertron. If a normal decelerator laser had stolen his infinite speed think, then, what a weapon backed by the power of Primus could do to a hyper-accelerated planet!

He lifted his head and looked around. One by one, the nearby combatants turned invisible to his optics. They were still there, they were simply dropping back into the normal flow of time. It _was_ working – the natural radiation of the planet, that vibe in the atmosphere that made you want to race, was carrying the deceleration effect through each and every inhabitant. Soon, Speedia would be back on local galactic time, and he and the others would have a real chance of ending the war before it further worsened.

Suddenly, Blur realised he was alone. Scanning around, he could see nothing but red smears across his visual field. Everything had slowed down, was back to normal… everything save for him. Wincing, he lifted the still-firing decelerator laser and began to swing it toward himself.

“Ohmanohboyohslag, thisisgonna _sting_ ,” he whispered.

The blast kicked him like a Ventriluxan techno-mule and, when his optical sensors came back on line, he saw he was surrounded by a thousand dumb-founded and decidedly tired-looking mechs. One by one, the battling forces dropped to their knees or slumped onto their sides, online but exhausted. Robbed of their inertia, their systems forcibly returned to normal operating status, they dropped like flies as their bodies cycled down.

Blur allowed himself to stagger across to a wall, but not before pulling the Planet Key free from the decelerator laser and clutching it to his chest. “Mine,” he breathed. “Mineminemineallmine, neveragainleavingmysight. ThistimeIdothingsright, rightfromtheverybeginning. Anyonewantsthisagain, theycanracemeforit. Thiswarfarestuffisforthebirds.”

Static hummed and hissed in his audio sensor. “Blur?” Swerve asked through the communicator. “How did you…”

“Blindfaith, brother, blindfaith,” Blur gasped, his flywheels still spinning rapidly. “I’llexplainitsomeothertime, whenI’mnotabouttodropintostasislock.”

“Belay that subroutine,” Swerve answered, his tone severe. “I just got a call from the others. They’re found Rodimus… and his Spark is going out.”


	6. Chapter 6

It was like… _floating._

Rodimus felt good… really, really good… for the first time in a long while. The pain in his arms and legs had faded, the strain behind his optics had gone and, best of all, the knot in his Spark had loosened and fallen away. He’d been running on stress and pressure for so long, ever since the destruction of Unicron, that he’d forgotten how it felt to be carefree. He wanted to go find Blur, and Arcee and Tow-Line, and tool off on some crazy adventure, some hot-headed trip through the heart of danger, just for the sheer thrill of it.

“Your thoughts, young one,” said a voice to his side, “are fascinating. Care to discuss them at length?”

The cavalier turned, surprised. Another mech was floating, just next to him. It was coloured yellow and blue, with a winch-type assembly on one forearm and a quartet of long helicopter blades on the other. Two wings draped down, cloak-like, from its back, each containing two smaller propellers. Large missile launchers poked up from its shoulders, on either side of a regal blue and yellow head. The look on its face plate was benevolent, even peaceful. There as no mistaking that this Transformer was, every inch, a Prime. Instantly, Rodimus knew who it was.

“Evac,” he breathed. “The guardian of Earth.”

The ancient Transformer nodded.

“But you’re dead.”

Evac nodded again.

“So does that mean I’m…?”

“No, young one,” Evac chuckled fondly. “That time has not yet come and, despite your foolhardy willingness to burn yourself for the sake of others, is a ways off yet. Consider yourself… in a unique situation, for now, somewhere your Spark and mine can chat. A perk of being a former and future bearer of the Matrix.”

“Okay, right,” Rodimus said, not really understanding. “So… um… you kicked skid plate in the Unicron battle, you know. Really nice work.”

Evac favoured him with a bemused smile. “That day weighs heavily on your processor, does it not?”

Rodimus snorted. “In the space of a couple of astroseconds, I find out five mechs have had my destiny planned out for vorns, get told to lead a race, have to unleash an army of the dead and, finally, decapitate an evil from beyond the dawn of time. I figure I’ve earned a few weeks of disenchanted confusion, don’t you?”

The older mech was still smiling. “Is that what this is, this constant doubt and self-recrimination? Seems more like fear, to my optics.” He waved his hand and the world around them changed… now, they were floating in a viscous amber liquid.

“My dream,” Rodimus breathed.

“More than that,” Evac whispered. “A chance to train, to grow. Rodimus, you have been baptised in the waters of the Well of All Sparks, and been changed. Though you are not the Prime… yet… you maintain a hard-wired link to the Creation Matrix, the artefact within which you will find your destiny. It has not abandoned you, though it sits within the chassis of another.”

“So I wasn’t dying of Matrix withdrawal?”

“Primus, no,” Evac exclaimed. “You’d merely overtaxed your systems. To the very brink of death… be that a lesson: rely not too greatly on your Force Chip.”

“Oh, I won’t forget that one in a hurry.”

“Back, now, to the Matrix,” Evac said. “Take the time to listen for it, to feel its touch, and learn from what it seeks to teach you. No one… not even Grimlock, though he pretends otherwise… expects you to ‘hit the ground running’ as leader. When your moment comes, you will need to be a Prime totally unlike any that has come before… one that is comfortable living in peace, but who can make great war when the need arises. When your moment comes, you will be alone in the world save for one true friend, one close companion with whom you can entrust your life.”

Rodimus pursed his steel lips. “If this is supposed to be a pep talk I have to tell you – it totally sucks.”

Evac laughed. “My purpose is not to put you at ease, little Prime,” he said fondly. “This is my destiny – the purpose for which Transformers like myself are made. Those like myself are the _balance,_ the middle of a line that starts with leaders and ends with followers. We keep the Primes on track, help them to look down and see that on which they step, remind them of reality as well as responsibility.

“Vector Prime had me. Optimus Prime has Ultra Magnus. And Rodimus Prime… well, he will have his own second, his own trusted friend who will be there, until the very end, no matter the risk or danger. But even he will not be able to shoulder the five-fold burden that will be yours. So _learn_ , now, while there is much time. You have the time to learn – take it, and make good use of it.

“And… stop panicking so much. You young mechs take everything far too seriously.”

Rodimus nodded. “I think I understand.”

“Good,” Evac replied. “And not before time, as our moment is over.”

“What do you mean?”

The ancient Transformer’s grin broadened. “Technology,” he said, “is rarely designed for comfort.”

Rodimus didn’t have time to ask that that meant – he felt a horrific wrenching pain, deep in his chest, and choked out half a scream before the world went dark.

\-----

“Oh, my aching head.”

“If that’s all that hurts, Roddy, then we’ve done our jobs right.”

Rodimus scanned around and smiled. He was in the med bay, back in the Pits, surrounded by his friends. Well, his friends _and_ Slag. The racer eyed him warily while the others broke into smiles and laughs. Clocker hugged him, then got all embarrassed and walked away.

“Yessir, done our jobs right indeed,” Brakedown continued, spinning an odd-looking contraption on one finger. “Best way to let a chassis rest and cool down is rip the ol’ Spark out of it, fix ‘er right up and then drop you back into it!” He whistled. “Every workshop needs one’a these things, I tell ya.”

The cavalier narrowed his optics and peered at the tubular, claw-ended device. “Spark catcher?” he asked.

“You know it, lad.”

“Ginchy,” he rubbed his head. “Please tell me it’s _only_ my Spark in here and not someone else’s as well, hey?”

Blur zipped over. “Don’tyouworryaboutthat, bestbuddyofmine,” he quipped. “Thefactis, you’reSparkissoswollenbyegothere’snowaywe’dfitanyoneelseinthatlittlehead, anyway!”

Laughter rippled around the room – even Slag joined in, Rodimus noticed – and everyone seemed to relax even more. But someone was missing. “Where’s Windrazor?”

A panel in a nearby wall unhinged and swung away, permitting access to a red F-15 fighter jet. Lithely, it transformed into the now-familiar pilot. “Crasher’s forces are moving north, Blur,” he said, firing off a sharp salute. “It’s not a large group but it’s large enough… judging by their faces, she’s ruling them more through fear than anything else.”

“I’ll go,” Override said, touching the speedster’s arm lightly. “You have things to take care of here. And yes, I’ll be careful.” She nodded once to Rodimus and transformed, driving out of a different sliding wall panel. Brakedown patted the cavalier on the shoulder and followed suit… Clocker lost his composure one more time, hugged Rodimus and sped off.

“My ship’s yours,” Windrazor said as he poked his head out the wall again. “It’s simple enough to control, and it’s got more than enough juice to get you back to Cybertron. If you can refuel it and send it back, I’d appreciate it.” He grinned. “Oh, and… thanks for giving me wings, too.” He folded in on himself, fired his engines and took off.

Rodimus grinned smugly. “Ha! He’s a plane – I _knew_ it!” He looked triumphantly at Blur… his best friend’s expression caused his smile to fade.

“You’re staying here.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.”

“You’re the duly elected leader of Speedia and you’re going to take back your world.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“And there’s a good chance we’ll never see each other again.”

“That’saboutthesizeofit, yeah. Timemaybebackontrackbutthepoliticsofthisplacearen’t. SomeoftheDecepticonsdidn’tevenknowtheywereworkingforDirtBosssothey’restilloutthere, fightingforallthey’reworth. AndCrasher – that’swhattheGTShastakentocallingherself – isbringingalotoftheLandbulletsandRansacksaroundtoherwayofthinking, andthat’sbad.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Someone’sgottamakethisplacesafeforracingagain. Mayaswellbeme.”

“You think you can save her. From herself.”

“MaybeIcan. We’llseeIguess.”

“You want me to stay and help?”

“Ithinkwebothknowyou’reneededbackathome, buddy.”

Rodimus frowned, sadness echoing within his frame. “I don’t like it, but I understand,” he said. Evac’s words came back to him. _Rodimus Prime… well, he will have his own second, his own trusted friend who will be there, until the very end, no matter the risk or danger. But even he will not be able to shoulder the five-fold burden that will be yours._

He wondered if that would be Blur… if this was the journey his best friend had to take, in order to be Magnus to his Prime. He hoped so, because then they’d be together again, one day. For now, hope would have to be enough.

He rose, still a little unsteady on repaired servos, and embraced his best friend. Blur hugged back, impressively managing to stand still for a full minute. Rodimus let him go, trying to smile bravely, gratified to see the same false look etched into Blur’s faceplate.

“Swerve already knows?”

“Ithinkhe’sknownforawhile. Maybeevenlongerthanme. He’swaitingforyouattheship. WithIncinerator… littleguy’sintheCRchamberWindrazorinstalled. Reallycutelittletinyone… he’llhateit. Plus,youhaveanotherpassenger, justtomakeupforlosingme. FastestguyIcanspare.”

He had a bad feeling he knew what that meant. “You’re joking.”

“You’d better get used to the idea that Slag is not a joke,” the racer said belligerently, “very damn quickly, or you and Slag are going to have words! Slag gets what you did at the track was to save our skid plates but that’s the last free ride you get, my mech!”

Rodimus winced. “Oh, _great_.”

“And another thing – if Slag hears anybody taking his name in vain, they gonna be getting mighty toasty mighty quickly, you understand? It’s time Slag took back the name Slag for the pride and power it represents… Slag’ll be educating you jokers!”

Blur drew in close. “MaybefarmhimofftoGrimlockorsomething,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Ol’dinobuttseemstoliketakingonthespecialneedsprotos.”

Rodimus started to laugh, but managed to stifle it before Slag noticed. “Good call.”

The racer transformed and sped away, in the direction of the ship. Rodimus looked hard at Blur, trying to burn the image into his databanks. “I’ll have to square all this away with Optimus, I expect.”

“Hadtoleavesomethingforyoutodo.”

“What, you mean aside from stopping Dirt Boss and saving the world?”

“No, Imeanasidefromunleashingalethallightningstormthatcouldwellhavefurtheracceleratedthedemiseofthisworld, leavingittometochannelitthroughared-lingingweapontosaveeveryone.”

“Oh. Frack. Sorry, buddy.”

“It’sallgood,don’tworry.”

“All right, so talking to Prime is the least I can do.”

“That’saboutthesizeofit, yeah.”

“You mind if I take this?” Rodimus hefted the Spark catcher.

“Iwasgoingtoinsist. IfigureDownshiftandRedAlert’llmakegooduseofit. Wehavemore.”

There was an awkward pause.

“You realise we’re both procrastinating.”

“Uhhuh.”

They embraced again. “Get going,” Rodimus said. “You’ve got a world to save.”

“Yougetgoing,” Blur replied. “Youhaveaworldto _lead._ ”

They both transformed and sped off, in opposite directions. _How ironic,_ Rodimus thought. _The cavalier heads off to a world in peace, while the pacifist drives into the centre of a world at war. Even without a Unicron, this universe is still fracked up._

He reached the ship and transformed again, striding inside and taking the seat next to Swerve. “You okay?” he asked the metallurgist.

“I will be,” the red car replied wistfully. “Nothing’s forever, Rodimus, not even the ground on which we stand… nothing except family. I’ll see him again, even if it is only within the Matrix.”

“Unusually philosophical for you.”

Swerve stared at him. “I just watched my brother catching lightning in his hands and use it to calm an entire world,” he said. “This, cycles after watching you – the little proto who used to follow me around – lopping the head off of Big Evil itself. I figure I’m entitled to change my viewpoint on a couple of things, don’t you?”

“Say no more,” Rodimus said. “Take us home, Doctor Rocks.”

The sleek red ship lifted off the ruddy brown soil and, within seconds, was gone.


End file.
